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)
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)