All Roads Lead Home

I don't typically post comments for movies, but I had to write in about this one. After seeing a decent rating (6.2 stars on IMDb is not bad), and mostly positive reviews, includes superlative statements such as: "It could be the most powerful animal-themed film I have seen.", "Defining Family Entertainment...perhaps re-defining." and "Put it on your "must-see" list.".

We rented "All Roads Lead Home" for our family, and were put off by the overt over-the-top animal rights themes, low budget look of the film (simplistic camera work, minimal post-processing, poor editing, sub par acting) and *very* choppy plot. The story seemed contrived in parts to go out of its way to pull at emotional connections to animals, and in all but a very few scenes was ineffective at doing so.

That is not to say that this film should not be watched, or is worthless, it just seemed like from many of the comments on IMDb that this was an Oscar-quality film. I would rather people go into this with their eyes open, so I decided to post. A number of these comments appear to be written from the perspective of a personal friend of the film crew, or someone who was invited to a private screening. Hardly a unbiased source. I don't at all mean to question the integrity of those comment authors, we are all entitled to our opinion! But I did want to balance that out with a more realistic look at this film.

To realistically rate this anything higher than 5/10 stars would be quite a leap, even for someone who enjoys cheesy sappy movies. This was a cheesy sappy movie that was done poorly with a small budget.

I would not recommend this movie, and feel there are many better choices on the market when it comes to family friendly movies.

All Roads Lead Home – Review By: J. Franklin Bradley, LBK Holdings, Inc.

True "family entertainment" is far more than just something everyone in the family can watch together. If done correctly, "family entertainment" is characters and situations that can be felt and understood by all generations…nicely blended into a compelling bit of storytelling that captures the imagination of it's audiences.

Just such a movie is "All Roads Lead Home", a little film with a really big payoff for its audiences. Each character adds a piece to the mosaic, from a cantankerous grandfather to his rebellious granddaughter, her father and his struggles with parenting, guilt and trying to move on with his life. Each has a differing view of their shared tragedy, yet no resolution can be found until they fight off the demons of mistrust, misunderstanding, stubbornness and resentment. Together, these characters form a wonderfully complicated mosaic, never fully revealed until the last piece is put into place.

Audiences of all ages will be mesmerized by this film. For it is a journey through life's complications, with every age and viewpoint represented. There truly is something for everyone in "All Roads Lead Home". And that "something" is a heart-warming story that proves that "family entertainment" really can reach out and hold an audience from the first to the last word of the script. Its storytelling at it's best. And it shouldn't be missed.

The description 'family film' gets tossed around a lot. I have found that either these so called family movies are either A) animated or B) still contain language, themes, etc that aren't exactly family friendly.

All Roads Lead Home is different. It is a wonderful film that manages to be sad, happy, funny, touching, and uplifting all at once. I won't go into to too many details as I don't want to ruin the story, but the message is simple, every living thing deserves a chance.

The movie also deals with death and dying which in my opinion is a positive. It shows that death is a part of life, it isn't glossed over but it also is shown morbidly or overly traumatic.

All in all it is a great film that I highly recommend...it will make you cry, make you laugh, make you think and most importantly if you watch it with children, make you talk. There are a ton of discussion topics that are dealt with in a positive way and I think that is both important and not something we see a lot of in 'family films.' See this movie.

I didn't watch this movie with high expectations so I wasn't too disappointed but I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential. What could have been a touching story about reverence and respect for life, and healing after a tragedy turned into nothing more than animal rights propaganda. I found the acting from all parties to be quite unconvincing. The "troubled daughter" as it read on the back of the movie cover, was a sweet grieving little girl who made a few mistakes with the best intentions at heart. I was not raised on a ranch, but I have a hard time believing that animals are tossed aside and killed so quickly and completely without thought as in this film. For the younger audience this movie could possibly be enjoyable but let me put it this way, if I wanted to watch some kind of PETA film, I would have rented one.

As soon as patton oswalt made his appearance my interest started to wane because he is the biggest loser i've ever seen... also peter coyote and jason london contributed little to change my mind ... april bowlby added some needed humor but what was peter boyle doing in this flop.