The Road

As I expected, reviews for the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" look terrible.

John Hillcoat was clearly not the right director for this film. That decision was based entirely upon his film "The Proposition," which came out a few years ago. That film was OK at best and continued upon the post-1970 theme of western as horror show. "The Road," at least the book version, only falls within that genre on a superficial level. It's really a story about the love a man has for his son. But of course, Hillcoat jumped all over the extreme nature of the story (while leaving out the most extreme elements, making it all far worse) and evidently not exploring the relationship side of the story in a meaningful way.

It's all too bad since it could have been a good film. And while the book is somewhat overrated as compared to other McCarthy works (The Crossing is much better), it's still quite solid and touching.