Official Synopsis:
Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo and Academy Award winners Jennifer Connelly and Mira Sorvino deliver riveting performances in the gripping thriller Reservation Road. A powerful human story of anger, revenge and great courage, this film takes you on an intense journey that follows two fathers as their families and lives converge after the events of one fateful night.
  
Our Take:
There must be a new trend going around in Hollywood where they decide to market their films through very crappy trailers. There’s just no other reason to explain the steady increase in shoddily crafted trailers. Reservation Road is a movie that just about everyone who watched the trailer said, “I bet that’s actually a good movie, but the way the trailer ended couldn’t have been more lame.” And it was largely because of that lame ending that so many people missed the film in theatres.

As for the actual movie itself, just like we all thought, it is pretty good. The problem with that is that the only reason it’s pretty good is because of Mark Ruffalo, Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly. Had it not been for such big names and such talented actors, Reservation Road could have very easily been a movie on par with most direct-to-cable ventures.

It surprises me to say that since filmmaker Terry George (who previously directed Hotel Rwanda) is obviously a very talented and able mind. But whereas that film was shocking in its truth and realism, Reservation Road is shocking in nothing more than its ability to play out exactly as expected.

Special features include:

* Deleted Scenes (8 minutes).

* Looking Back On Reservation Road (14 minutes) – A good retrospective documentary with the talent and creators involved.

* Friday Night Lights episode “Last Days of Summer” (45 minutes) – Well this wins the “Most Random Special Feature” Award, although I’m not really complaining because it’s also kind of cool.

Just because Reservation Road brings nothing new to the table in regards to a story involving losing a child and the anguish and revenge at stake doesn’t mean it has no merit. The first twenty minutes are so are a solid sob-fest and the rest of the film is a tightly paced drama but I just can’t help but feel that had there been lesser names in the lead roles I would have liked the film a lot less.

Overall Picture:
Movie: B-
DVD: B-

- Landen Chase Pelish
Staff Writer