Lumsdal
Good , But It Is Overrated By Some
ChanFamous
I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
Bumpy Chip
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
TxMike
We came across this one on Netflix streaming movies and my wife and I enjoyed it very much. I am a bit surprised at its low IMDb rating, it is a pretty good movie.The movie is carried by Camilla Belle, about 26 during filming, as Angie. She has such a genuine and natural acting style, she reminds me a lot of a long-time favorite of mine, Tea Leoni. Here she plays a Brazilian (her mother is actually Brazilian) who was educated in American schools. We find her in Arizona leading a hermit's life. Well, almost. Even though she lives out of her car and a tent in the woods she has a job as a waitress. And she is an artist, drawing and painting in her free time.The lure of the story is that we don't learn much about Angie or why she lives like she does. She doesn't tell other much about what is going on and that works well to build interest in the rest of the story.Old reliable Andy Garcia is Chuck, bearded and dirty, he lives out of a shell of a trailer near where Angie camps. The two of them become friends, and when Angie does take off she leaves him some money and a note "Take a shower."Angie has car trouble on the road, it is a blown head gasket that takes a few days and a bit of money to repair, so she takes up with the trooper that found her roadside, 40-ish Colin Egglesfield as David. And she eventually gets a local job at a restaurant run by is Juliette Lewis as Jill.This is NOT your usual romantic story, it captured us to the end, and Camilla Belle is really good in this role.SPOILERS: Angie had come to the USA to find her dad who had deserted the family when she was quite young. When she had just about given up and had an art show, old Chuck was there, cleaned up and shaven, she realized that he was her long-lost dad. In the last scene they all travel to Brazil and reunite with the full family.
max-eisenberg94
This movie sucks. I liked it for maybe the first 25 minutes and then it just became one of the worst movies I have ever watched. The character Chuck was okay he and Camilla Belle had the only interesting interactions during the first twenty minutes of the movie. After she went back on the road, I felt like I was watching a porno. The cop looked and acted like f***** creepy dude right off the bat and smiled straight through his first half hour on screen. They didn't have a single meaningful dialogue but this was somehow enough to make someone who has decided to live their life on the road to give her search for her long lost father and live in some random town where she hates the people at her work. (Also why do they never discuss any actual price specifics on the car, I feel like someone who live own the road for that long would be money conscious and where the f*** did she get money to afford that other house she bought). The whole art gala scene and Chuck becoming her father were the dumbest movie twists I've seen in years. At least Camilla Belle was cute only thing that kept me watch. Honestly it became comical how horrible the script was. Thank god this atrocity only cost 3 million to make.Also Juliette Lewis should never get another acting job ever again.
l_rawjalaurence
The beginning of OPEN ROAD is highly suggestive, with director Marco Garcia depicting different moments in Angie's (Camilla Belle's) life, as she works as a server, travels along a lonely road, and tries to communicate with her mother back in Brazil. It's clear she's got something to hide, but we have no idea what; all we know is that she is a talented artist, who translates all her emotional pain into her paintings. So far so good; but then the film experiences a failure of nerve and transforms itself into a familiar tale of self-discovery. Angie meets nice boyfriend (Colin Egglesfield), and his skeptical cousin (Juliette Lewis), leaves her boyfriend in the lurch as she goes off on the road, and discovers at the end of the film that her friend Chuck (Andy Garcia) - whom she encountered at her lowest point during her journey - has a dark secret directly relating to her own life. At times the script veers towards the banal, and although the film is well photographed, with several aerial shots of the rolling landscape with Angie's car just a speck on the horizon, one cannot help but feel that director Garcia could have done far more with the material.
Larry Silverstein
Although certainly not he worst movie I've ever seen, I felt this indie film was marred by very contrived plot elements and cardboard characters.Camilla Belle stars as the aloof and mysterious young woman Angie, who's working as a waitress in a small town in Arizona, after traveling from her home country of Brazil to search for someone, although we don't know who or why. At nights, she goes into the desert alone, sleeps in a tent, and paints and sketches.To add to the mystery , she won't reveal any of her background to co-workers, and rebuffs any of their attempts at socializing with her. Through flashbacks, there's hints of a possible rape at one time, although these may just be recurrent nightmares.In the desert she befriends a homeless man named Chuck, portrayed by the acclaimed actor Andy Garcia, who sleeps in his broken down truck -- (when she was in school she must have missed the classes in Safety 101 which may have suggested that befriending a homeless man in the middle of the desert at night is not exactly a wise choice). Anyway, Chuck tells Angie that he was once wealthy but "messed up".He tells Angie she's young and should move on with her life and she takes his advice and hits the open road. She ends up sound asleep, in her car, on the side of the road (again-should have attended that Safety class). She's awoken by a highway patrol officer named David, portrayed by Colin Egglesfield who wants to know if she's alright.However, her car has blown a head gasket so he offers to help her get towed to a garage in town, as well as a place to stay at his trailer while the repairs go on. They're attracted to each other, but while David seems like a super nice guy Angie still won't reveal anything about her past or who's she looking for on the road..One of my favorite actresses enters the film at this point Julliete Lewis. She adds life and humor to the movie, in a relatively small role, portraying Jill, who is David's cousin and who runs a diner in town. On his recommendation, she hires Angie as a waitress but warns him not to get too involved with a woman who is so mysterious. David pays little heed though and is ready to introduce her to his mother and perhaps even propose.Unfortunately, at this point the plot contrivances take off culminating in an ending that I thought was totally absurd and incredulous. When I'm saying out loud to the screen No! You're kidding me !--it's usually not a good sign.In summary, although the film has some intrigue and humor, the predominance of the contrivances and non-believable characters I thought heavily outweighed the positives.
