Even with the world on its last legs, humanity nearly extinct due an unspecified disaster, watching a father teach his son how to kill himself is almost too much to bear. The world is gray, earthquakes are common, and nearly all animal life has expired. Despite all of that, despite the billions likely dead across the globe, this single father and son story still holds weight.

Viggo Mortensen, simply known as “The Father,” knows what fate likely awaits him and his son in The Road. Amongst their combined meager possessions, he always has a gun, loaded with two rounds, one for each of them. Despite their current state, malnourished to the point of starvation, that gun holds more importance than anything. It is what matters to them.

It is impossible to fathom how you raise a child in this environment. Mortensen is on the edge, obsessed with keeping his son alive, although even he seems to question why. He never loses focus, although most of his fight seems to be instinctive. It always comes back to that gun for him.

As “The Son,” Kodi Smit-McPhee is superb. His young mind tries to rationalize things he could not possibly understand. As they walk into a barn searching for shelter and food, the former residents have hanged themselves. Smit-McPhee stares, confused, and asks why. Even though Mortensen tells him why, Smith-McPhee does not seem to grasp the idea, or the purpose, for taking ones own life.

This John Penhall script, from the novel by Cormac McCarthy, is incredibly smart. Writing is logical, explaining the bare minimum through logical dialogue. The audience is tossed into this apocalyptic world, lost as to where father and son are heading. Mortensen tells his son as a reassurance, promising him things will be better. Those wondering about the events that occurred prior to the Earth’s near destruction are given a small hint by a nearly unrecognizable Robert Duvall as he talks of his own past. It remains ambiguous, yet the best clue in the film.

The Road makes an interesting observation about childhood. McPhee, despite being raised after the event without contact from other strangers and is a son to an aggressive father, stills shows kindness. He still has his humanity, and compassion for others. He wants to help two random strangers, and feels sympathy as his father strips a man naked for stealing food. The son still has some shred of morals and decency, but why? His entire childhood was about keeping himself alive and seeing others killed or tortured. The fact that he still holds the basics of humanity with a shred of decency is enough to keep hope for civilization by the end of the film, the closest this movie comes to ever being “happy.”

Movie ★★★★★ 

Appropriately, The Road is an ugly, dirty film. It should be. The opening frames, with brightly lit, saturated colors focus on flowers. That is sapped away with a quick edit, leaving the film flat, gray, and brown. The image carries little to no depth due to the gray scale it exists in, and the lack of color suiting but intentionally bland.

Detail is minimal at best. Certain close-ups allow the viewer to pick up individual hairs on Mortensen’s beard, and some light facial detail. Rarely is it defined or crisp in any way. As father and son hide from a group of bandits in a rotting forest, the ground is littered with leaves, and definition is minimal. Long shots of destroyed cities are bland, although enough to pinpoint specific details within the frame. Cloth textures are there and noticeable, but like everything else, still a bit soft and bland.

While free of artifacting and general encode errors, edge enhancement is a consistent problem. The first glaring occurrence is at 3:36 during a long shot of some barren trees. They all have notable halos. There are countless other shots throughout the film like this. The truck door at 30:09, along with the entire freeway when the camera moves underneath, show glowing lines. A few seconds past the hour mark, some sheds in the background have edge enhancement on their roofs. At 1:31:24, a shot of Mortensen and a cart suffers the same issue.

Other problems are few. A hint of banding can be seen within the lackluster blacks from time to time. A shot at 1:17:20 shows a static grain structure, although this likely has to do with the visual effects. The rest of the film carries a natural, unobtrusive grain structure handled without fault by this AVC encode. This film is the furthest thing from eye candy, but the transfer itself, besides the haloing, seems right on the money.

Video ★★★★☆ 

Some of the opening narration by Mortensen can be difficult to make out on this DTS-HD effort, although this seems to have more to do with the voice work than the audio track. Dialogue elsewhere is fine, both crisp and clear.

Earthquakes hit multiple times during the film, the most spectacular at 1:13:20. Trees fall to the ground, aggressively placed in each channel. The shaking itself is heavy on the bass, certainly satisfying in terms of LFE punch. It has no trouble shaking the entire room.

Ambiance is standard, including whipping winds as a character moves out of their home, and some excellent water dripping effects at 26:40 inside the destroyed mall. Obviously, there is no wildlife to take note of. The score is fantastic, especially the simple piano theme played during the beginning of the end credits. It carries a wonderful fullness.

Audio ★★★★☆ 

A commentary begins the extras slate, this one from director John Hillcoat. This moves into a standard making-of that runs for 13:47, followed up by five deleted/extended scenes for 6:38. Typical Sony staples, including MovieIQ, tons of trailers, and BD-Live remain.

Extras ★★☆☆☆ 

Blu-ray Movie Review from : DoBlu.com

The Road Review

Traitor is the latest in a line of “war on terror” films, following excellent titles such as The Kingdom. Thankfully, Traitor is superb in its own right, easy to grasp and engaging throughout. With only minor flaws, Traitor will keep you involved until the credits roll.

Don Cheadle, superb as always, plays Samir Horn. A devout muslim, Horn is supposedly working for a terrorist organization, building bombs and carrying out the bombings himself. The title gives away a rather obvious plot point, but when it’s revealed, the film takes a full turn into aggressively capturing the viewers attention as his plan unravels.

That’s one problem with Traitor. It takes nearly an hour for the real plot to kick in, and there are extraneous scenes beforehand that hardly feel necessary. While not a complete waste as it works as a character builder, it simply feels unnecessarily stretched.

Guy Pearce and Neal McDonough play FBI agents going after Horn, fitting into their roles naturally while adding a feeling of authenticity. Jeff Daniels is miscast, and isn’t believable in his role, which revealing would be giving away a spoiler. On top of that, he has three scenes total, and while he’s integral to the plot, should have been played by a different actor.

Traitor is a movie on a global scale, adding a nice sense of danger to the proceedings in that the attacks could happen anywhere. Location shoots benefit the film, rarely leading to repetitive photography.

While not action packed, the few shootouts and fight scenes are handled well. This is the largest film Jeffery Nachmanoff has ever tackled as a director, yet gives Traitor a fast-paced sense of danger when the bullets start flying. Editing is tight but never to the point where it’s difficult to understand what’s happening.

Traitor may not have had a massive budget or top tier acting class, but this effective international thriller has more than enough going for it to overcome its obstacles. Cheadle is more than effective as a leading man, and perfectly captures a complex character in Samir. It’s worth it for his performance alone, and thankfully the rest of the movie holds up as well.

Movie ★★★★☆ 

What starts off as a blinding, over-contrasted disaster quickly turns into a beautiful, detail rich AVC encoded transfer. While that contrast does make a return, it’s a visual style for the film, not a transfer problem. Natural flesh tones lead a strong color presentation, and the sharpness only wavers in some of the darker scenes. A hint of digital noise can creep into some random shots, though it’s brief enough not to be a complaint. There’s no noticeable artifacting or artificial enhancement.

Video ★★★★★ 

Sadly, this TrueHD mix is a disappointment. It’s as if the stereo channels are only things that exist during the action scenes. The surround use is sparse even with heavy action, and non-existent elsewhere. Dialogue is well mixed so that it’s never over powered, though that’s not a problem for the bass either. Explosions have hardly any impact at all due to the flat LFE.

Audio ★★★☆☆ 

Two featurettes total about 10 minutes, and that’s about it for the extras with the exception of some BD-Live enabled trailer downloads. Action! is a short look at the choreography and stunts used in the actions scenes, but is padded with film footage. International Espionage deals with the location shoots. Both featurettes are in HD.

Extras ★☆☆☆☆ 

Blu-ray Movie Review from : DoBlu.com

Traitor Review