Where to begin, there were so many problems with this movie.
The written dialogue was often weak filler and the delivery was frequently unnatural. Almost as if the moments where the actors were exploring how to deliver the dialogue were captured and used to create the movie. At times there was dialogue when it wasn't needed.
Generally, a movie is good if the audience is not "aware" they are watching a movie. Thus when something in a movie forces the viewer to stop watching and think, it isn't a good movie. At one point in this film a character commits an action they regret right away, yet their dialogue states they didn't know *something* before they committed the action. However the character should still not know the *something*, yet they are lamenting what they have done because of the effect on *something*, which is unknown to them. Like a chunk of the movie is missing to explain what was going on, but actually it was just poorly written, in my estimation.
The big name actors both seem to be having a bad day on set, for almost the entire film. Michael Madsen & David Carradine are so very good in Kill Bill (1&2) yet somehow it seems they made no effort in Road of No Return. It is as if we are watching two actors who just happen to look like Madsen and Carradine, but lack their talent. Maybe they just could not get into their roles, perhaps the characters felt too similar to the characters they portrayed in Kill Bill.
Over acting and under acting were not the only weaknesses. The framing, lighting and dead end quality of some scenes creates an ongoing internal dialogue in the viewer. The voice in the mind of the audience is often saying things like: "Why did they shoot that scene in such a strange way?" "What was the value of that line of dialogue?" "Is this supposed to be a comedy?" "Why are the only good scenes the ones where someone is talking to the child actor?" "Is this whole movie a bizarre parody of a movie?" "Am I on candid camera as I watch this movie?"
The special effects are so lame the are almost non existent. With so much gun fire I was left wondering why there were so many poorly produced effects connected to gun fire? Less gun fire done well would have been a better idea.
Conceptually, the story line worked well, it was just the execution that sucked. (pardon the pun) In fact, the only reason I kept watching was to see how the story line played out.
Were the actors that bad or was there something else going on which caused this production to turn into card board cut out characters? I'm still not certain, but it felt like something was restricting all of the performances as they could not have all been uniformly bad actors.
In the end, this is a great movie for use in learning how NOT to shoot a movie.
The written dialogue was often weak filler and the delivery was frequently unnatural. Almost as if the moments where the actors were exploring how to deliver the dialogue were captured and used to create the movie. At times there was dialogue when it wasn't needed.
Generally, a movie is good if the audience is not "aware" they are watching a movie. Thus when something in a movie forces the viewer to stop watching and think, it isn't a good movie. At one point in this film a character commits an action they regret right away, yet their dialogue states they didn't know *something* before they committed the action. However the character should still not know the *something*, yet they are lamenting what they have done because of the effect on *something*, which is unknown to them. Like a chunk of the movie is missing to explain what was going on, but actually it was just poorly written, in my estimation.
The big name actors both seem to be having a bad day on set, for almost the entire film. Michael Madsen & David Carradine are so very good in Kill Bill (1&2) yet somehow it seems they made no effort in Road of No Return. It is as if we are watching two actors who just happen to look like Madsen and Carradine, but lack their talent. Maybe they just could not get into their roles, perhaps the characters felt too similar to the characters they portrayed in Kill Bill.
Over acting and under acting were not the only weaknesses. The framing, lighting and dead end quality of some scenes creates an ongoing internal dialogue in the viewer. The voice in the mind of the audience is often saying things like: "Why did they shoot that scene in such a strange way?" "What was the value of that line of dialogue?" "Is this supposed to be a comedy?" "Why are the only good scenes the ones where someone is talking to the child actor?" "Is this whole movie a bizarre parody of a movie?" "Am I on candid camera as I watch this movie?"
The special effects are so lame the are almost non existent. With so much gun fire I was left wondering why there were so many poorly produced effects connected to gun fire? Less gun fire done well would have been a better idea.
Conceptually, the story line worked well, it was just the execution that sucked. (pardon the pun) In fact, the only reason I kept watching was to see how the story line played out.
Were the actors that bad or was there something else going on which caused this production to turn into card board cut out characters? I'm still not certain, but it felt like something was restricting all of the performances as they could not have all been uniformly bad actors.
In the end, this is a great movie for use in learning how NOT to shoot a movie.