The Road to Hell

Sci-Fi Thriller. Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Garret Dillahunt, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here. The future isn’t bright, not in the slightest, in John Hillcoat’s Oscar-tipped, post-apocalyptic thriller, adapted by Joe Penhall from the novel by Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote No Country For Old Men.

Hillcoat shoots everything through a grimy, colour-bleached lens and when misery is poured upon the characters’ heads, the consequences are chilling and often gruesome. To offset the relentless doom and gloom, the film clings on to any scraps of sentimentality and engineers as much of an upbeat, life-affirming resolution as it dares, which slightly cheapens the horrific ordeal of the duo in this unspecified near future.

The emotional weight of the film rests almost entirely on the shoulders of a gruff and heavily bearded Viggo Mortensen and Australian child star Kodi Smit-McPhee.

Cast as father and son in a desolate landscape littered with unspoken dangers, the two actors create a believable on-screen dynamic – sometimes warm and nurturing, sometimes strained and argumentative.

Director Hillcoat opens with a flashback, introducing an unnamed husband (Mortensen) and wife (Theron), survivors of a terrible disaster.

She is pregnant with their son and is reluctant to bring a child into a world without hope, where humanity has turned against itself.

Having given birth to their child, the mother eventually abandons her husband, walking into the darkness to her grim fate.

Years pass and supplies of fuel, food and water are almost entirely depleted, forcing those that remain on to the road.

The Road is unremittingly downbeat, bolstered by terrific performances from Mortensen and Smit-McPhee. It’s not a road movie you'll forget in a hurry.

***