Friday Night Special - Paved With Good Intentions

On The Road (2009)

Starring: Vigor Morgenstern, Ash "Scrappy" Montana, Charlene Thorzine Directed by: John Hillerman Rating: R Genre: Comedy Other: Scenes of Apocalypse

Friday Night Special - Friday Night Special is a special feature of Oswald's Screen Scene. Here we present reviews of movies that we feel may be of particular interest to those special lovers looking for that magical mood-setter of a date flick that just might ignite the passions bubbling under the surface during the last work day of the week. Is this "The One"? Or just "One of Those Things?" Let us be your guide! Review As the happy Mork-slaughtering hobblits sang, "The road goes ever on..." And does it ever in this misguided "reboot" of the popular post-war "Road To..." series. Originally penned by the bumbling Cohen brothers, former Magnum P.I. star John Hillerman churns Bob and Bing's idyllic butter into rancid sour cream, turning Dotty L'Amour-flavored Bali into a scarred earth that appears to have been bump-mapped from Abe Vigoda's tragic face. Vigor Mogenstern, so good as the mentally-challenged boxer in Peter Jackson's remake of "Fat City" is here teamed with enormously talented youngster Ash "Scrappy" Montana as a pair of fathers and sons who traipse across country searching for the last twinkie in the universe. Not a huge hook to hang this four-hundred minute sombrero upon, but Hillerman does what he can with the Cohens' global-warming nonsense. I personally was left with a tremendous sense of unease, which can't have pleased Mr. Walt Disney or his marketing minions beavering away in their fur-lined hidey-holes at their carpal-tunneling adding machines. And, while I reserve the right to disagree with Hillerman's wrong-minded conclusions, I'd fight an eighteen stone she-badger to defend his right to spout them. All in all, this may not be fatback, but rather very lean Canadian bacon. Those on a spiritual diet may be amused. The rest of us will have to exert enough self-control not to kill the theater staff and burn the mutliplex to the ground. And in the end, maybe that is the point Hillerman is after - conscience makes bastards of us all.