The Long Dumb Road Movie Download

10 / 10

Places character before the comedy
There is one big negative about this film that I want to talk about up front. The cinematography is very harsh, overexposed in a lot of places. I am sure it is a function of the budget but the sharpness of the image and the overall texture of the colors is really too hard for the underlying material. The tonal dissonance robs the film of some emotions. The direction-i.e. framing, staging, blocking-itself is quite good. The director manages to find a different style for shooting scenes in a moving car and she consistently uses it to great effective. The film’s pace just moves and the overall cinematic quality of the film is quite good. I just wish they used a softer lighter palette. It is not enough of an issues to prevent full enjoyment of the film.

The script is quite good. It manages to be funny and touching while never falling completely into either cliche or contrivance. There are common road trip film beats present-i.e. car breaks down, bar fight, rekindling of old relationships, theft etc. but they are all configured to be more organic and realistic than they usually are. The film’s greatest strength is it places character before broad humor. So much of the hi-jinks comes from Richard being an glorious hot mess in a way that is so common.

This was a very nice find.Read More