The Traveler (2010)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Touches You

Simply A Masterpiece

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The movie was like a Freddy or Jason film. You know who the killer is, who is going to die and why they are going to die. The film starts out with a girl, Mary Black being abducted while out in the woods skipping rope and playing with her kitty, Shining. Don't worry, if you miss this scene they will show it 3-4 more times. She manages to get out very loud screams even though the killer has his hand over her mouth.We flash ahead 1 year later, Christmas Eve at a small town police department. Detective Alexander Black was the father of Mary and is having some family problems mainly over the death of Mary a year ago. Then at 8:14 Val Kilmer shows up as "Mr. Nobody" to confess to murders. Val has the eerie appearance of an old fat Jim Morrison and recites various dark lines and truisms such as "It is the job of the police to protect the rich and persecute the poor." He also has his own music as he whistles Mozart, which sounds a little like the opening of "Lassie" for you old timers.The soundtrack is a combination of Mozart and Metal. It was good, but it really had an opportunity to make the film. We soon find out that the cops who are on duty had clubbed a drifter into a coma attempting to get him to confess to the killing of Mary Black. They show the torture scene about 6 times. The drifter (never called The Traveler, perhaps "Drifter" was already taken) was beaten with a shovel, baton, fist, hung, whipped, and suffocated. Oh yes and stuck with a pen.Our Traveler is here to get revenge in a strange and supernatural way, which the police quickly figure out. As he confesses to a killing, he is actually describing how a police officer is being killed.I found the movie to be "Twilight Zone-like" at times, and Kilmer, attempting to be the new thinking man's Freddy. His slow monotone speeches are reminiscent of his Morrison readings. I saw this as a film version of dark poetry with cult status potential.No sex. No nudity. Does contain blood, guts and torture.

For some years now, Val Kilmer's presence in a movie, especially when he receives top billing, almost guarantees "B" status. But I thought "The Travel(l)er" had a nifty premise, so I decided to give it a chance. And it's not all bad: director Michael Oblowitz establishes some atmosphere in the first half, and most of the acting is decent to good (especially from Dylan Neal). But Kilmer is miscast as a mysterious, powerful, all-knowing character, and some fake-looking extreme gore in the second half spoils the atmosphere. This story would have worked better as a "Twilight Zone" episode - it's too long at 92 minutes. ** out of 4.

****************************** SPOILERS ********************************The problem I had with this movie is that there was too much slow motion and ridiculous moments. Like when the chick is meeting her end and they keep firing and banging on the window to get into the car when its obvious there are powers beyond their control making the car impenetrable. It goes from pistol shots to shotgun and with each bullet, the bullet shatters and not the window. There was a lot of stuff like that. What I came to the conclusion of by the end of the movie was that yes the drifter was actually guilty but what the cops did to him a year ago also was wrong. You don't treat a suspect that way. They were in the wrong. He got revenge which in sense he really didn't deserve since he did do it but at the same time he did. It was one of those on the line things. I found the movie entertaining but the things I mentioned above as they weren't the only times they were done needed to change. I gave the movie a 7. It was interesting which saved the movie from being a complete failure.

When I was in junior high, we had to put on a play about a terrorist hijacking of a plane (weird because it was pre 9/11). That piece of crap my class and I put together in 20 minutes was better than this movie. I mean I'd hire any of the actors in my school production over the actors in this film.LOL the script is even worse. They must've gathered every single person who ever failed out of a script writing class and asked them all to produce this single script.I know Kilmer has been in a lot of bad movies lately but this one definitely takes the cake.LMAO watch the first 30 minutes to see how bad a film can actually be. Other than that, don't even re-gift this DVD to your worst enemy. You'd be a better person for taking a dump in a box and wrapping it up.