Film Perfection

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Just like Death Valley National Park where Scenic Route was filmed. I was actually in the park while Scenic Route was being filmed. I drove by the main scenes location several times and even stopped to watch the shoot for a few minutes. For people like me who love this national park, the movie is good for two reasons, the story is plausible and the locations are familiar. Not Oscar material here but still well worth watching. For anyone who has driven or explored the area between Beatty, Nevada and Furnace Creek inside the park, the movie will be entertaining due to the dialog, action and acting but also due to the scenery and backdrops that come into view. Once or twice the local cops stopped traffic for a few minutes while a scene was being shot. Fun to see the wardrobe, catering and support crew out in the middle of a lonely stretch of highway. This movie brings life to Death Valley!

Review: This is a crazy movie about 2 buddies who get stranded in the desert after there car breaks down. There relationship is questioned after they start telling each other the truth about how they really feel about each other. In some ways, the movie does have some depth, but the arguments between each other are a bit ridiculous when you think about what situation they are in. The ending was a bit strange, but in all, it's a watchable movie that would have been much better if it was taken seriously. The performances were OK, but I think that it would have been better if the guy without the crutches was played by someone else. In all, it's an average movie that you will end up sticking with, just to see what happens to the stranded buddies.Round-Up: Josh Duhamel, who became popular after his role in the Transformer franchise, was a great choice for his role, especially the ending which added a mysterious twist. Dan Fogler usually stars in more comedic roles which was why I didn't think that he was the right choice for his role. That's not to say that he put in a bad performance, but he did become a bit annoying after a while. The attention to detail wasn't that great, but there were a couple of moments which were well written and thought out. I recommend this movie to people who are into there buddy movies about 2 best friends who are stranded in the desert after there car breaks down. 4/10

...this lo-fi freshman feature mostly hits responsive notes as it wends its Ambrose Bierce-ish way into the Twilight Zone, and that's about the extent of any spoiler I'm likely to offer. Scribe Kyle "The Beaver" Killen sends two not-so-buddy-buddy buddies into Death Valley, and the results aren't quite what one would call scenic. The two leads are mostly believable, with Josh "Safe Haven" Duhamel evincing stronger chops than Dan "Kung Fu Panda" Fogler, who is perhaps a hair too whiny for the character's own good, but then again maybe that was the whole point. Worth a watch for folks who enjoy lo-fi sleepers and films that are otherwise off the scenic route.

As I was this surprisingly good movie, I found myself making comparisons to movies like "127 hours" or even "The Descent" - movies featuring characters stuck in seemingly hopeless situations where survival seems unlikely at best. "Scenic Route" handles the situation a little bit differently. Like the former movie, the adversary in this is nature itself. Mitchell and Carter (Josh Duhamel and Dan Fogler) are on a road trip. Old friends, they've drifted apart and life has taken them in different directions. This trip is the attempt to rebond. But when their truck breaks down in the middle of the desert with no help in sight, it becomes a fight for survival against the daytime heat and the night time cold, the lack of water, and the wild animals. Like the latter movie, the situation takes these friends and ultimately makes them adversaries as they struggle for survival.Duhamel and Fogler play their roles very well, and the movie is smartly written and moves along at a nice pace. The dialogue seems natural - the sort of things a couple of guys stuck in this situation might say to each other. The desert setting is a wonderful backdrop to the battle for survival, and we learn enough about each of the main character's lives to feel a sense of empathy with them.My biggest quibble with the movie might be the original explanation for why the truck broke down. Without giving anything away, that seemed out of place. It introduced what seemed to m e to be an unnatural reason for conflict to emerge between the two. I thought the movie might have been more powerful without that - if we had just seen the situation itself start to take its toll on two guys who basically were buddies. But if that's a weakness, it is one of the few you see with "Scenic Route." The ending leaves a great deal open to interpretation, and obviously there is no definite answer as to what the ending means or even to what exactly happened in the movie (which is another similarity to the ending of "The Descent.") It's all in the eye of the viewer, who can interpret it as he or she chooses. (7/10)