The Traveler (2010)

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

This is what happens to actors when they get fat and lazy. They end up in awful movies like this.Remember when Val Kilmner used to be a leading man? I do.Now he's in this bad torture porn that makes little sense. I knew we were in trouble from the first scene when they decide to play the credits over a child murder.The plot is six cops beat a drifter into a coma when they suspect he was the one who killed the daughter of the most senior of them. Oddly, they all happen to be in the police station at the same time when another drifter shows up and confesses to murders that mirror the deaths of these cops.The moral goalposts of this movie are so confused even the actors don't know which way to go, and frankly, it's kind of disturbing to watch Kilmer, who used to do good movies, in this sort of role.A bad sign in this sort of movie is when you are feeling less the suspense, and more the "have we run out of people to kill yet?" Just not a good movie.

****************************** SPOILERS ********************************The problem I had with this movie is that there was too much slow motion and ridiculous moments. Like when the chick is meeting her end and they keep firing and banging on the window to get into the car when its obvious there are powers beyond their control making the car impenetrable. It goes from pistol shots to shotgun and with each bullet, the bullet shatters and not the window. There was a lot of stuff like that. What I came to the conclusion of by the end of the movie was that yes the drifter was actually guilty but what the cops did to him a year ago also was wrong. You don't treat a suspect that way. They were in the wrong. He got revenge which in sense he really didn't deserve since he did do it but at the same time he did. It was one of those on the line things. I found the movie entertaining but the things I mentioned above as they weren't the only times they were done needed to change. I gave the movie a 7. It was interesting which saved the movie from being a complete failure.

A nameless drifter (Val Kilmer) ambles into a police department in the middle of the night to tell the night watchman that he has killed six people. Arrested and booked, the drifter tells Detective Black (Dylan Neal) that the murders haven't happened yet. The six police officers quickly find that the man in their captivity is describing what will happen to them throughout the night.Val Kilmer's newest straight-to-video offering is a clever, definitely creepy idea that never quite connects with the themes it tries to make or the audience is tries to draw. Kilmer has staked his claim with low-budget action, now he tries his hand at horror. He's just short of what could have been a royal flush."The Traveler" has some aspects in its favor. Kilmer ably performs the mysterious stranger, though his performance seems to unravel as the film draws to a close. John Cassini and Chris Gauthier play two of the potential victims and come close to being memorable. The latter especially does his best with what he has and makes a sympathetic performance. Though no one matches Dylan Neal, who is the strongest of the cast as the detective with something to hide."The Traveler" is also not without its faults. Clichéd, hackneyed characters do little to make the film better. As the film continues on, it faces problems with continuity and elaboration on exactly who the stranger is. The biggest downturn is the script, which offers fewer and fewer answers to the questions it asks and doesn't seem interested in answering any of them by the end, leaving me a puzzled viewer.I give it a well-deserved five out of ten stars. It's a solid effort and worth a watch if you want a film that both makes you think and turns your brain off.

Netflix has this way of making you watch things you would never ever watch any other time. However, The Traveler did look like it might have some promise. Its true Val Kilmer doesn't exactly have a star studded career in the last...decade...and that's being generous but the film looked like it had a creepy isolated stranger feel to it and I enjoy that. Its sort of a Stephen King concept but not brilliant. Its poorly slapped together, the cast is sub par and the film starts to fall apart when it should have been climaxing. The premise is almost captivating...the stranger who comes in and confesses to six murders and as he tells the story of the murders, the murders happen around them, to the members in the precinct. Then the story becomes a supernatural ghost story not unlike a certain western I once watched, called High Plains Drifter...but comparing those two movies is like comparing...well a great movie to crap. Had they spent more time, casted better and just generally had a better film making crew this could have been something but instead it was barely B-Movie.Val Kilmer...once an eighties and sorta nineties star has practically dropped off the Hollywood radar. He always kind of had a certain intensity about him but his role as the stranger in this film and he makes the role laughable and that really hurts the film. He overacts, looks silly and the performance falls apart. Character actor Dylan Neal actually gives a solid and strong performance as the head of the precinct. He gets a strong back story to his character and really carries the film giving it any of its credibility. The rest of the cast are all basically fodder and filler. No one really stands out but everyone gets some basic personalities to their various characters. I could go through the list of supporting casts but honestly...none of them stand out whatsoever.I was a little surprised to discover Michael Oblowitz is not new to directing. In fact the South African director has a dozen titles to his name and some of them quite well respected. But the directing isn't the biggest issue to the film. There is a certain style to the overall film and while some IMDb reviewers complain about the gore, it is at the heart of it all a horror movie and the over the top blood splattering gore is the only thing that might enable this film to find a foot hole with horror fans. This one is a road bump in what had some potential but unless you're in need of a bad B-Movie romp...skip this one with something just better. 6/10