Roadside (2013)

What a beautiful movie!

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

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

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Here are a list of ingredients of which mixed together makes for an altogether disgusting stew of a bad thriller movie.Here goes:1. Have unremarkable performances from your leads to disengage you from the narrative and therefore not create tension.2. Have those same characters occupy boring archetypes (like a struggling couple as in this film) of which leads to recycled plotlines, making the film feel redundant.3. Have these characters occupy a unique story, sucking all the life and fun out of it, making it feel all the more unoriginal.4. Have said characters make stupid decisions (like about using their phones) to elongate the plot as opposed to creating an exciting story or characters.5. Create false tension through numerous regurgitated storylines and plot threads instead of writing strong enough characters or a strong enough story to carry it and create actual tension alone.6. Have contrived scenes (including some related to the wife character being pregnant) to again create false tension and make us feel empathy of which the film has not earned towards these characters, given how uninteresting and unlikable they have been up to this point.7. Have the bad guy act moronically, including a scene whereby he flees the area, even though he has a couple HELD HOSTAGE of who could flee once he did that. Have the main characters not jump at this opportunity either.8. Have an out of nowhere scene to trick you into thinking that the person on screen is the bad guy when it isn't, to develop a mystery that has previously been woefully underdone.9. Have the end scene have a twist so out of place all the while so predictable, as the mystery of the villain hasn't been developed at all up until this point.10. Don't end your film. Leave it on a cliffhanger of which will be mistaken for ambiguity and intrigue by imbeciles, but is clearly the writer giving up because he has run out of money or doesn't know how to end his film. In other words, that is this movie in a nutshell. Avoid it at all costs.

ROADSIDE is a cheapjack horror/thriller combo about a couple who go out driving one night and end up being stranded in their car by a sniper lurking in the woods. It's a low budget suspense movie that clearly wants to be the next PHONE BOOTH, but the single location set-up of the thing is all it has going for it.Instead this is a boring film filled with unlikeable characters and overwrought acting. Nothing much happens for long stretches and attempts at suspense fall flat over and over again. It doesn't help that you don't give a fig for the characters supposedly in peril while the villain of the piece is equally dull and yawnsome. Lots of shooting-in-the-dark cinematography follows, leaving viewers to squint their eyes and wonder why they're still watching until the final, predictable scene unfolds.

This movie started off well but lost itself partway through, resulting in a movie that I had to force myself to finish. I had no empathy for the characters and honestly neither of them had redeeming qualities that made me even care whether they survived or not. The story itself seemed to be really dragged out by the writers.The "bad guy" delivered his lines in such a way as it came of quite cheesy and then when the ending finally made an appearance I was left shaking my head wondering in what universe that even made any sense.I'm giving this movie such a low score simply because the majority of it was a struggle to finish and left me really disappointed after such a strong start. This is a movie I would urge other people to avoid.

****Not sure if this really contains a spoiler. I talk about the end, but I don't give it away. Just a bit about whether or not I liked the end. So if you don't want to know if it had a good, great, horrible or even alright ending, stop reading towards the end of this review.****I went into this with little expectation of liking it. Then I did like it. The dialogue between the husband and wife was entertaining, never forced or stilted nor boring. The writing was reasonably done as was the acting. Honestly the only character I disliked was the bad guy. Duh, right? I didn't dislike him because he was the bad guy I just didn't like the way his lines were delivered. Knowing what I know now(the ending) I wonder if this was done on purpose. I watched this really waiting for what I thought, no, knew to happen. But it didn't it keep on . Then it ended. Yep. It ended. All movies end you are thinking. Yeah, they do. But this one ended before I thought it would. It surprised me. That doesn't happen often. Did I like the end? I don't know. Maybe I'm just to used to "and they all lived happily ever after, The End." Maybe I just like more explanation. I don't know. I didn't hate it. But I didn't love it either. Sequel , anyone?