Barely a movie. This thing is BARELY a movie, and almost certainly not worth the cost of the celluloid it was printed on. ‘Road of Death’ was one of the first films directed by Rene Martinez Jr. and quite honestly, its a training exercise more than it is an ACTUAL movie.

The plot? HA!. well, the plot is split into 2 halves with the final 10 minutes or so uniting the film together. Bearing in mind this film is 73 minutes long.

So the first half an hour or so introduces us to a biker gang, the leaders got a new girlfriend and in order to formally induct her into the gang, they have to do the initiation ceremony…Which here means the entire gang have to run train on her, but once thats done, non of the gang will ever try anything with her again AND she’ll have the full protection of the gang from then until the end…that plotline, in and of itself, is half the movie…

Now you may be asking yourself, well surely theres some drama? some complex plotting that makes that situation have tension, and intreague and suspense?!…To which I say to you, This is ‘Road of Death’ a first time film attempt by the guy who’d go on to give us ‘Guy from Harlem’ and ‘Supersoul Brother’…So no. what i’ve written above IS all that happens for that duration, the guys ride their bikes around, and sit in the grass flipping quarters…thats it.

The second half of the film is a *little* bit more interesting and follows a group of hippies? (I assume they’re hippies) the guys are all in a swinging band and the girls are all about free love and being one with nature. They spend most of their portion of the film talking about love, the future and what plans they’re going to get up to over the next few days. A good chunk of this is set in a nightclub while the guys reherse their act (and believe me, you’ll SEE them reherse…A LOT.)

Theres a ‘love in’ scene in what looks like some kind of motel room, and then they head out to the woods to go skinny dipping…and that leads us to the last 10-15 minutes of the movie, in which the biker gang spot the hippies and decide to ‘rough them up’ and ‘raise hell’. The hippies all end up injured and traumatised by the event leading one of the guys to go get a gun and do some martial arts on the biker gang, leading to a 5 minute finale which is literally the only part of this film worth watching, ending both predictably and with a thudding dullness.

This felt like someone testing their camera equipment out, who just so happened as a byproduct to discover if he cut all this together, it could be something approximating a movie.

The script is almost non existent, theres barely any dialogue, and what dialogue there is is basica and feels heavily adlibbed. It really wouldnt surprise me if it turned out that Rene on set just gave them a scenario and told them to wing it.

The pacings glacial, with only the final 5 minutes picking up pace to a ‘pedestrian’ level. Non of the characters are particularly interesting or complex, the film completely forgets half the characters even exist in the second half of the film, its going for a largely serious tone, but because its SO bland and uninteresting it somehow manages the feat of having a clear tone, thats so feint its barely decipherable.

The direction is poor, theres a handful of interesting creative decisions but 90% of the film is just locked off mid wide and wide shots that dont really offer anything new. Direction of the cast is painfully safe barring the bike riding sequences, cast members are bolted firmly to the ground or a chair while talking and very little movement happens on camera, with most scenes opening with the cast already in place.

The cine isnt much better, generic compositions with minimal B-roll, badly edited together, colour usage is largely accidental without any kind of coherent themes. the edit itself is rough, with cuts happening seemingly at random and the film really REALLY struggles to stay in focus. Not helped by an incredibly rough around the edges film print sourced for its recent HD remaster.

The performances are borderline ghostly, I dont mean that they’re eerie. I mean that they’re so feint and generic that Most of the time it felt like the cast were reading their lines for the first time the second ‘Action!’ was called. NOONE here looks or sounds good its cinematic sludge.

And the soundtrack was SO good, I dont even remember if there was one…given everythign above, im assuming there wasnt.

A painful movie to sit through, its a 73 minute flick that feels like 100. with an aimless and boring, dragged out plot. Poor direction, even poorer cine, performances that are dire in a way that cant even be enjoyed FOR their awfulness and a totally unmemorable soundscape. This would have been a half star had it not been for the final 5 minutes or so, and 2-3 moments that struck me as ludicrous across the runtime. That was *just* enough to stop me fully hating this movie. But by GOD it’ll be a cold day in hell before I click play on this thing again.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/road-of-death/