What a waste of my time!!!

A Major Disappointment

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

A better title: Road to Nowhere. After all the hype and publicity, this docu-film is directionally-challenged. The cobbles deserve respect--and on all fronts the film fails to summon that with an all-out amateurish effort.As an avid cyclist, pro-peloton fan, and graphic designer by day, I'd eagerly awaited--and bought the DVD for the privilege.Content-wise, the interviews were brief and superficial. They were collectively repetitive and lacked the insight or depth to teach us what motivates riders to adore Roubaix. One can only blame the interviewer.Editing was odd--focused on one edition of the race in 2007 without explanation and yet attempted to pepper with vintage photos and modern-day b & w footage. Timing, order, length of scenes: weird.Speaking of footage, while the old photos & showers were interesting, the history and prestige of the race was never established. The assumtion is that the viewer knows.And where were the stars themselves--the cobbles?? How many of us have seen amateur online minutes of Roubaix--especially at street level--that have stirred the emotions far more than this?Music: irritating. Someone please turn down the sound. Professionally-done? Seriously? How about synthesized, repetitive, and unoriginal. Did I get a demo when I ordered?It's fearful thing to have panned a film so thoroughly--particularly on our beloved Roubaix. One will still learn something new--one can learn something from anything or anyone.3 stars for being present and making the effort.Spare yourself & invest instead in the classic, A Sunday in Hell, or WCP DVDs of past Roubaixs.

i have no idea what others do when they're reviewing DVDs; generally i have a pen and paper at the ready to scribble notes and those incredibly brilliant one liners that i never have while watching. Only this documentary was so cotton picking absorbing, that the end credits were running and my hand was still holding the pen, mid word. and the worst part is, i'm not sure what the word was. i'm not much one for swearing, whatever the occasion, but this is ****ing brilliant. watch as Tom Boonen ambles his way through a pressing stream of autograph hunters, calmly and cheerfully signing everything placed in front of him. watch again as 2007 winner, Stuey o'Grady walks almost as many kilometres to the team bus as he's just ridden across the cobbles. and after pedalling across those huge chunks of rock for 160 miles, happily posing for photographs with folk that presumably have no business being there in the first place. David Deal and David Cooper of Masterlink Films have made one heck of a movie about one of the finest, if not the finest race in the cycling season. It's a point well made throughout the film, by several of the participants; those who dream of a win in the Roubaix velodrome are generally a lot less interested in the three week tours. Peter Van Petegem for instance, though it's obviously possible to do both. interviewee Sean Kelly one of the prime examples. Eddie Merckx' mechanic, Julienne De Vriesse, at the point of creation, a mechanic with Discovery Channel team; 'you're either a rider for Paris-Roubaix, or you're not'. Thankfully, those are qualities not necessarily applicable to those on this side of the screen. it's a fabulous race to watch on TV, even better if you have the opportunity to stand by the side of the cobbled roads, and finally rounded out to satisfaction by this film. It's an eccentric mix of interviews too; Tim Kolln and Camille McMillan, two photographers who have contributed so artfully to Rouleur since its inception, as well as the editor of same, Guy Andrews and regular contributor, Johnny Green, tellingly wearing a Tour De France pin badge on his lapel, all the while professing undying love for Roubaix. all encompassing is cycling. the choice of riders is also eclectic. yes, there's Tom Boonen and Peter Van Petegem, but contrasted by ('it's insane) Lance Armstrong, a rider who never took the Compiegne start line throughout his career (regrettably, if his words are to be believed). Juan Antonio Flecha, who crossed the line in Roubaix almost a minute behind O'Grady, Gert Steegmans, Marc Madiot, Max van Heeswijk, all conspire to make this an overwhelmingly, well considered documentary. Prize for the most unfortunate interview has to go to Lampre's Alessandro Ballan, camera in his face in front of a team bus running a rather loud engine of some sort. Thankfully, Ballan's answers are in Italian, so we have the benefit of English subtitles to 'hear' his Roubaix wisdom. The latter part of the film is a cleverly edited, monochrome overview of Stuey's 2007 Paris Roubaix, the hours in the showers, and even Tim Kolln photographing those incredible post race shots in front of a large white background. Like all the best movies, Road to Roubaix will bear repeated viewing, because much like a Joni Mitchell album, you'll always find bits you missed the first, second and probably eleventh time round. The aptly atmospheric music was especially commissioned for the occasion, composed and performed by Paul O'Brien - as important as the moving pictures in my humble opinion. quite insane - i had shivers down my spine watching much of this.

It's late and I'm tired, so I'm going to cheat and quote from the 2009 BigPond Adelaide Film Festival program notes for this one."If you know bikes, you need no explanation of Paris-Roubaix, the greatest and the toughest one-day classic in world cycling. The famed 260 kilometer race over a brutally difficult cobblestone surface … is a race known as the Hell of the North which requires, as one competitor puts it, "an immense appetite for the physical toll the race can take." And there is this: "Here's your testosterone hit for the festival: the poor hopeful fools in the breakaway, the implacable peloton, the dreams and bikes broken on the cobblestones, the vanquished riders coated in blood, dust and sweat." Unfortunately, the program promised much – but Road to Roubaix delivered little.OK, maybe I am being too harsh, but this is definitely one for the aficionado's. At 75 minutes, this documentary spent far too much time talking to the riders, officials, and other key players in international cycle racing, and far too little time on the real action taking place on the cobbled Paris to Roubaix route.Maybe the co-directors, Dave Cooper and David Deal didn't have permission to get close enough to the action to film the actual event, and had to make do with a mix of television footage, historical photographs, and other vision to fill out their story.Not that the story isn't compelling.Stars of the past and present, including Lance Armstrong, Sean Kelly, George Hincapie, and Tom Boonen, all give insights into the grueling ordeal. One star who was not interviewed, was Adelaide rider Stuart O'Grady, who threw everything at the 2007 Roubaix – the background to this film – and went on to win it.

While this film takes on interesting subject matter, it fails to deliver as a film. Overall it is nauseatingly repetitive and poorly structured. It consists of interviews with various cyclists and people involved with cycling, plus one single interview with a spectator. Mostly the cyclists say the same thing: this is a special race; this is a grueling race. But if you watch this film, you'll get to hear that fifty times from fifty different people just to make sure you believe it. There is very little footage of the race and very little context given to place. It would be nice to see more scenery, hear more from locals, learn more about the history (other than what year it started), etc. It seems fairly poorly researched since only very basic information is supplied and then repeated. In conclusion, this fails as a documentary film.