Konterr
Brilliant and touching
Glucedee
It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.
Catangro
After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
pik-lustig
I disagree completely with the reviewer who posted the negative review from the BUT Film Festival. I saw road to hell on Sunday and thought it was by far the most daring and ambitious film of the entire program me. The only negative was noisy a--holes who tried to disrupt the screening by being rude. I do agree that not all the songs were good but the Jim Steinman songs soared. It was good to hear real rock and roll instead of overly loud screeching so called music that was featured by the festival. Was the film perfect, of course not, its called B-movie, underground and trash film festival. Best about the film was Mike Pare and the psycho girl, Clare Cramer. Both were superb in difficult demanding roles. as I watched, I found myself thinking about Waiting for Godot. Its a theater piece set in a theater type setting. The copy of the film was not good but I would buy the finished blue-ray for sure. Violent, profane and dark. Perfect for the festival.
alan-broome
I was going to wait until I had a chance to see the finished film because what I saw at the Fantastic Fest last year was almost too rough to watch. I must admit that even with the poor projection and clearly unfinished effects shots, the film packed a powerful if disturbing emotional wallop. At times I was so shocked by the rage fueled violence set to rock ballads that I could feel myself flush and even swept by a wave of momentarily nausea. The film is one that will split audiences because it really puts forth the depressing idea that for even larger than life iconic heroes, life can turn disappointing and desparing. I don't think I've ever seen a film that takes a dashing heroic figure as a youth and then shows us the ruins that is his life 20 years later. In a weird way it was an analogy for me to wars like Viet Nam where youth is idealistic, filled with life only to return home a shell of a man. That's what we have here. An almost super human and stoic hero reduced to a destructed, bitter man. He's delusional in the hope he can be saved. Pare does a masterful job in bringing Cody's pain, desperation, and confusion to life. It's the best performance in his career. Clare Kramer is very very good too. Her character must be one of the most obscenely vile person ever portrayed on screen. What is amazing is how she can be so ugly and yet so breathtakingly sexy in the same moment. I really want to withhold final judgment as the film did say it was a work in progress. The movie has definitely stayed with me. It screened with Pare's Streets of fire and that made the contrast of Pare even more striking. He's so young and youthful in Streets and so grimly weathered in Road To Hell. It's one of the more shocking things to see. Like one of those where are they now things where you see a sweet face then the now shows the image of a ravaged meth addict. You wonder how did one go from sweet to horrific? In a nutshell that's what this film explores.
sambroxton
I was going to wait until I saw the finished film to comment but people from the Fantastic Fest screening are giving their early views so here's mine. I agree with everything all three say about it. It is a very bent vision that is at turns intoxicating, offensive, moving and repulsive. It isn't the kind of movie where you just sit back and turn off your brain because I think the filmmaker intend for you to think about what you are hearing and what you are seeing. It's ambitious in how dense with nuance the plot, if you can call it that, is with all sorts of contradiction. The fact that the film was so unfinished made it hard to watch at times so I have to withhold any final judgements. Same for no giving a proper synopsis because I am sure they will need to work on that. I am very curious to see it. It's really a throwback to acid trip movies of the 60's and 70's where the audience had to bring their own head trips to mingle with the film's. Michael Pare and Clare Kramer are riveting. The movie leans heavily on their charisma and ability to keep the audience sympathetic with their characters even as they perform the most heinous and repellant acts on other characters and yes, jeeps. I think they should have waited before screening the film is such a rough form but I hope they got useful feedback they can incorporate as the shape the final film. This film could be a ten if they pull it all together or it could end up a 1. It's got the potential to do both. Heaven or Hell.
jackburden
I saw this film earlier this month with Michael Pare and its makers in attendance. They all got up on stage before the film started, and it is amazing in retrospect how enthusiastic they were about this "unofficial sequel" to Streets of Fire, which we had all just watched Before RtH began. Road to Hell is an experimental film at best, and that's being kind. The cut we saw was just under an hour, so it was too long to be a short and too short to be a feature. It was entirely green screened, and lots of the shots came off looking like poorly constructed car commercials or automotive trade show sets, as nearly every shot in this "movie" centered around a jeep. The Jeep looked too new, as if they lacked the budget to rough up a Jeep for the production and used their own daily driver instead. Also, it's difficult to tell when you watch this whether there are two different jeeps or just one--did Tom Cody have his own Jeep in addition to the female lead's Jeep? I couldn't tell. The dialog was laced with f-bombs to the point of absurdity, and there is a needless and inexplicable exploration of violence against women which appears to me to be completely incongruous with the Tom Cody character. Mind you that I'm not in the least squeamish when it comes to seedy characters--I think Bukowski is great literature. In this case it's just that the makers of Road to Hell have only invested about 5 percent of whatever scant talent they have in this production. I give a 1/10 very rarely, but this film really does make another 1/10, No Holds Barred, look like Citizen Kane.