Minor league baseball player Carlton Garrett (Justin Timberlake) is tasked by his sick and in the hospital mother Katherine (Mary Steenburgen) to find his former Major League Baseball star father Kyle (Jeff Bridges) and bring him to her bedside, enlisting his school teacher ex-girlfriend Lucy (Kate Mara) to join him for on the trip.

CRITIQUE

Jeff Bridges is widely considered the Academy Award front-runner for his fantastic work in the new movie Crazy Heart. His praise for that film is beyond justifiable, and while I personally think he’s given greater performances in his long, dynamic and highly eclectic career, saying so doesn’t make what he does in writer-director Scoot Cooper’s drama any less magnificent.

What I will say is that, as wonderful as the actor is in that film, he’s every bit as good in the quite different and tiny bit more freewheeling The Open Road. While neither effort rewrites the rules of drama, this low-key road trip saga of redemption and family has enough humor and heart to make its DVD/Blu-ray dump by Anchor Bay a little bit mystifying. It’s a solid movie that pulls few punches and doesn’t do anything altogether different or unusual. But like Crazy Heart what it does do is tell a solid story and tell it well, and while the performances are better than the script that fact alone doesn’t make the project any less recommendable.

In other words by and large I liked it, writer-director Michael Meredith constructing a pleasing effort that kept me by and large entertained. Timberlake continues to blossom as an actor, it’s always nice to see old pros like Steenburgen and Harry Dean Stanton get roles at least somewhat equal their talents and Mara ends up being much better here than I ever expected her to be. As for Bridges, he’s so smoothly engaging as the aging ex-athlete he slips into the character like a pair of old baseball cleats, so effortlessly endearing and funny I almost felt like I knew Kyle Garrett personally.

Of course, that familiarity is also a small problem. There is nothing in this movie we haven’t seen before, relationship road movies from the beginning of cinema following pretty much the same template Meredith blatantly copies here. A lot of the arguments go strictly by the book and the only reason they have any emotional resonance at all is thanks to Bridges and Timberlake, and I have to admit if I wasn’t watching this movie at home sitting on my couch and saw it instead in the theater there is the very real possibility I would have been more than a little bit bored. I also have to admit that Mara’s continued smoking in the movie really annoyed me for some reason, the complete randomness of it seeming bizarrely out of place.

Still, at only 90-minutes the movie never overstays its welcome, the economy of Meredith’s storytelling skills supremely laudable. And the acting really is wonderful, the two main stars having an effortless give and take that’s highly believable. If you didn’t know any better you’d almost think these two actually shared some DNA, both of them so good they elevate proceedings far above the level where they arguably belong.

Back to Bridges and Crazy Heart. If he wins for that movie (and by all indication he’s going to) I am not going to feel bad about that fact in the slightest. He’s outstanding in it, and when you combine his performance with T-Bone Burnett’s song writing abilities the result is simply out of this world. I just don’t think he’s any better in it then he is here, and it always saddens me a little bit that when an actor goes the comedic route he’s forgotten but the moment he gets down and dirty (especially if there’s alcohol involved) the Academy falls all over themselves in praise.

The basic truth is that Bridges is one of the best, and most constantly overlooked and under-praised, actors of his generation. He’s been delivering award-worthy performances for over three decades, his work in The Open Road a glorious reminder that he’s the kind of performer who can appear in a movie in any genre and make it better just by the value of his presence (Blown Away excluded).

For that reason alone I’m willing to cut Meredith’s film a ton of slack and offer it up for recommendation as a rental. Will it change a viewer’s life? No. Will they talk about it for weeks on end afterwards? Definitely not. Will they enjoy themselves while it’s playing and come away after feeling a bit lighter on their feet and maybe a wee bit happier about the world in which they live? Sure, that fact alone making it worthy of a look.

THE VIDEO

The Open Road is presented in 2.35:1/1080p. The transfer is fine; picture quality is clean and definition is solid, and while colors aren't very bright they give off a warmness that's good enough for home viewing.

THE AUDIO

The film is presented in English Dolby Surround 5.1 audio with English SDH and Spanish subtitles. Like so many Anchor Bay releases, there is no hi-def soundtrack provided for this Blu-ray release.

THE EXTRAS

Audio Commentary with writer/director Michael Meredith and actor Jeff Bridges: Jeff Bridges should record more audio commentaries, listening to him is just plain awesome.

Behind the Scenes of The Open Road: A standard making-of piece that is so short I'm not even sure you can call it a legitimate featurette.

Also available is the film's theatrical trailer.

FINAL THOUGHT

The Open Road deserved a wider release and for fans of the actors makes just about the perfect rental.