Joaquin Phoenix stars as
college professor Ethan Lerner. One
beautiful fall day, after attending a music recital, his family is
traveling
back home, when they stop at a convenience store on Reservation
Road.
At the same time, Dwight (Mark Ruffalo) is
rushing to get his son home to his ex-wife, Ruth (Mira Sorvino), after
the
baseball game they are attending runs late and he keeps the child
longer than
the visitation order allows. While
speeding down Reservation Road,
Dwight is distracted, and doesn’t see Ethan’s kid
on the side of the road. The
boy is struck, Ethan sees it all, and
Dwight leaves the scene of the accident.
Will the police be able to
find Dwight and charge him with the crime?
Will Dwight be able to live with his guilt?
Writer/director Terry George
(based on the novel by co-screenwriter John Burnham Schwartz) provides
a nice
mystery about how Dwight will be found out, if he will be found out and
what
will happen if he is caught, which keeps the audience interested when
focused
on that, especially since we want to see him brought to justice for his
crime. However, Reservation
Road also feels like we have
lots of filler, and needs a more dramatic building to the revelation the
audience already knows, but our characters do not.
The actual revelation is great, but it’s
the
path that could be more interesting.
On the positive side, Ruffalo
is an awesome weasel. George and
Schwartz give him lots of great material as we see Dwight constantly
lying
about every little thing (and some big things) throughout the movie,
but
Ruffalo adds an annoying attitude to the character that makes you hate
him even
more than you normally would given the circumstances.
You like to see him sweat and fret and worry
as the police, Ethan and the truth start to close in.
Yet, he also adds enough goodness to the
character to keep the audience slightly blissfully conflicted. Ruffalo makes us see the
frustrations Dwight
must confront, his desire to be a good father to his son and how he
might want
to do the right thing. It’s
enough to
keep us interested when the movie doesn’t always deliver.
On top of that, Phoenix
does a decent job
throughout most of the movie, but becomes overwrought at the wrong
moments. I like how
he shows us Ethan’s obsession
with getting justice for his kid, pushing the cops to investigate
harder and the
horrible pain a parent goes through when losing a child so tragically.
However,
Ethan has one last great confrontation towards the end of the movie,
and is so
over the top it is almost silly, much like the battles Ethan has with
his wife,
Grace (Jennifer Connolly).
Reservation Road may have
some flaws, but those are overcome by the better aspects of the movie.
3 Waffles
(Out of 4)
Resrvation
Road is
rated R for language and some disturbing images.
Copyright
2007 - WaffleMovies.com
