End of the Road

After watching her deliver a descent performance in her limited role in Hustle, I had hopes from this movie which had Queen Lateefa in the lead role of a single mom on an unexpectedly dangerous road trip with her family, something that was evident in the trailer and caught viewers attention too. But then, this was the end of it.

One cannot totally blame the actors if you have a script that hasn't got enough element for a thrilling road trip (was it the budget issue or inexperienced direction, can't really say).

Yes, the suspense that unfolded mid-way was good, but once you have finished watching this movie you too would feel that it wasn't good enough to be recommended as your weekend ride.

I really really tried with this one because of the number of actors that have decent names. I even ignored the very very repetitive r@cism tropes. I still struggled with the off button. But I did make it to the end. Just!

It was very tired old/ old fashioned. Very repetitive. Poorly over acted. And weirdly directed.

The slow increase of purple lighting made me think old horror movies. Very odd. It felt like the director was trying to portray it as a dream where the whole thing is a story of a black womans struggle to have a better life with white people constantly holding her back...but the movie wasnt done well enough to leave that impression.

The "baddy" was super obvious from the very beginning. Bit of a waste.

I have liked Luda for decades and hes also acted in decent stuff but LUDA..what you thinking?

Queen Latifa seems to be portrayed as a super athletic bad ass recently but I genuinely dont see what producers see. There are hundreds of black women that could portray a bad ass and make it more believable. Her close up fight scenes look very dated and only used because she isnt an athletic bad ass.

The scene where she not only takes out a muscle bound ex UFC fighter with very few blows but she also takes out a whole gang of r@cist drug dealers made me pick up the remote to finally go to turn it off..but I thought NOPE, I shall finish this like the hero I am.

And what is it with every white person being r@cist? I mean I get having white people as baddies but do they all have to be r@cist baddies.lol... The r@cism was strong with this one, mostly not very subtle at all. Even Ludas character was a r@cist cliché.

But a black female director who has spent god knows how many years behind the camera obviously has a story to tell..But these heavy handed messages with a weak story isnt the way to get the message out. Its bores people. Just read the terrible reviews. They missed the smaller subtle messages in this movie because they were busy rolling their eyes with the big loud r@cist tropes.

There were subtle micro aggressions that were excellent but then BOOM..a massive r@cist bomb ruins the whole thing.

I absolutely genuinely think ""R@CISM"" is a new movie genre..like slashers were in the 1980s.

Watch if really bored and dont know all white people are r@cist..

Everything is mediocre in this movie. Script, acting, photography, director, production design, etc. Typical lefthanded copy-paste of the worst kind. And what's up with the purple lighting? Is it so not to make the movie too scary? Don't worry. There's nothing scary about this movie. The acting and how the scenes are composed together are so untrustworthy that you won't feel scared, ever! Only every two minutes you will be wondering why you are still watching?! And that's a kind of scary feeling. The producers should have taken the same actors and the same script (maybe a different director?!) and made a Comedy. That might have worked.

This is a terrible movie. An hour and a half wasted. All the white people were bad. All the black people tried to be good people. I mean, forget the stupidity of social politics. It doesn't matter what color anyone is. They should've killed people who were trying to kill them. Good job trying to take the high road when people are trying to kill you. That's not reality. But again, reality isn't even reality anymore. This movie is awful. It's not worth watching. I'd rather watch Morbius and that was pretty terrible too, but not as terrible as this movie. Go watch something more fun like Minions.

TRYING to disregard all the obvious social "messages" in this...

This was decent for the first half, act one. Where they are merely building characters.

Catalyst happens, act two....

If you have half a brain you INSTANTLY know who "Mr Cross" (The bad guy) is. Because of this, act two feels more like going through the motions. The repeated "mystery" behind Mr Cross is somewhat pointless because you will probably already know who it is.

The reveal, act three....

From here.. It's exceptionally fitting that Ludacris is starring in this film... because it all gets so very, very, very, ludicrous. It almost borders on an unintentional comedy. There are too many logic errors to list - wild leaps that wouldn't really be possible.

All the acting was good, the constant unnatural lighting was an odd choice... purple, orange, green, pink.... never just normal lights. Made it visually more interesting.

Overall it was an okay watch, but don't really expect too much.

Regarding the "propaganda" aspect.....

I would say the "message" here of exceptional bigotry by white characters is not really a good message for younger audiences. Portraying all white people as racist is no different than portraying all black people as pimp, hookers, or murderous drug dealers --- it's simply not true. Ya can't paint things with such a broad brush. While I don't deny bigotry exists.. I've never seen it to the extent expressed later in this film. And to be perfectly honest, I think it worked pretty well in act one of this film when it first rears its ugly head. However, all the usage after that scene was pointless and didn't add to the story in ANY way.

I honestly wonder if these films which portray such bold, in-your-face, clearly defined, racism are not teaching mechanisms for younger viewers. And while this film avoided any white character using the N word.. it got as close as possible without it. So are they somehow showing younger white viewers what's "okay" in terms of how white people think of and act towards black people?? There's no subtlety in this film, no nuance - which is most commonly what actual racism looks like today. And there are no consequences for the racism, no pushback by other white characters.... it's simply portrayed as "that's what all white people think."