The Way (2011)

Excellent, a Must See

Disturbing yet enthralling

A Masterpiece!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

I watched this after walking the first half of the Camino (at an age considerably more than Sheen's character), and was pleasantly surprised to see many recognizable sights. The portrayal of the journey is mostly spot on, with the obvious exclusion of blisters, sore muscles, and other discomforts of the trail. I never completely understood the characters, though. Their presentation seems superficial. People walk the Camino for many reasons, but you have to be dedicated to your purpose to take a month or two out of your normal routine to do it. Sheen's character showed the grit most of the time, but to the others it seemed more like a lark.

From the first scene itself, the film feels like its trying too hard to be something. It's trying to be inspirational, meaningful and deep but ends up lacking everything. The dialogues are horrible although you feel the heart put behind it that you can't hate it. It's so shallow in reiterating the same structure of sequences again and again albeit with a sweetness.

The premise of this film doesn't sound too bad: 'A father heads overseas to recover the body of his estranged son who died while travelling the "El camino de Santiago," and decides to take the pilgrimage himself.' If you can imagine a good film along those lines then I'd recommend leaving it at that. If there's one lesson to be learnt from this movie, it's that life is too precious to waste two hours of yours watching it.Martin Sheen's decent performance in the face of a weak plot, unconvincing dialogue and substandard production values is one of the only redeeming features. He described it as the best role that had ever been written for him but you have to wonder if he would have said that or indeed gone anywhere near this project had his son not been the writer and director.I have recently done this walk and it is a great experience. There are incredible vistas along the way as well as long barren stretches, none of which are captured here with any great degree of skill or imagination. It looks like someone's first attempt having done an evening course in filmmaking and, checking out the director's filmography, that's not (relatively speaking) too far off the mark.You also meet interesting characters along the actual Camino but being real, three-dimensional people, they bear absolutely no resemblance to the ones depicted here. One of the few things that the makers of this production actually managed to achieve was matching the general quality of the acting performances with the quality of everything else - it was all below par.With a running time of 2 hours (that feels like an eternity) you can't help but feel that they should have been a bit more liberal with the scissors in the editing suite. It does beg the question though: which bits would actually merit being left in?You may get the impression that I'm not the kind of person this film is aimed at. On the contrary, I imagine that my sensibilities would put me very much in the target market. My favourite films are ones with themes of hope, fraternity and triumph of the human spirit. I think The Way attempts to capture these motifs but just doesn't manage it in any sense.One of the genres listed for this film is comedy but the only really humorous aspect of it unfolds as it descends into a surreal game of "Where's Wally?" as you wonder 'where is the wally responsible for writing and directing this thing going to pop up next?'...Every now and then Emilio Estevez's dead character (who looks more like a swollen corpse than I think was the intention) jarringly appears in more and more ridiculous places. It really wouldn't have seemed that incongruous had his head popped out of a toilet as Sheen's Tom had gone to relieve himself from the torture of having to converse with his insufferable walking companions.Unfortunately the worst legacy of this film is that it is ruining the Camino de Santiago not just in its second-rate depiction of it but in actuality as thousands of baby boomer retired Americans flock to France and Spain in order to find themselves and presumably implausible fat Dutchmen called Joost and obnoxious Canadian women called Sarah. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against anyone doing the walk who wants to and certainly nothing against the people of that great country. But when you've walked 30km to your destination with a 15kg pack on your back only to be greeted by people piling out of a taxi, having paid for their bags to be sent on, joining the queue for the accommodation that's meant to be reserved for walkers it does leave a bit of a bitter taste in the mouth. This is especially true when it means that you have to either sleep outside (this actually happened) or walk another 6km to the next town with no guarantee of a place to stay there either.Also, don't think that my experiences on the walk clouded my objective view of this film. I was looking forward to seeing what had inspired so many people to make their trip and was hoping to relive the countless positive memories I'd had. This just wasn't what I found.You never really find out what it was that killed Estevez's character in The Way, I can only assume that this and indeed the whole film is some kind of a metaphor for the suicide note to his directing career that it is.

Well, what can i say? This was probably one of the best movies i have watched in the past six months and maybe even more. This is the story of a father whose son died and when he goes to take the body back home, he realizes that he wants and feels the need to complete the journey that his son started.The way the movie is developed is one where you feel like you are in the journey with Tom and the other people, so that you can understand what the characters are feeling and so that you can learn and grow with them. In fact the characters go through a lot of situations that make them change and understand each other better and better while they are in their journey, said so you can understand that there is a great character development going on in the movie.The cinematography, the quotes, the music and the plot seem to be really well thought because as i said before they let you feel like you are in the movie, and if you pay enough attention you will lean a lot as well.This, besides being a great movie, is also a really deep one. You can see that although a father might be cold or mean sometimes, he still loves you and he will do anything for you. If you let it, this movie can really help you understand more about life, in fact if you can watch it with an open heart, you might understand your self a little more and learn that it's never too late to try new things.I would totally recommend this movie to someone who wants to be entertained, see a great character development and at the same time is looking for something deep and a little emotional.