Hit The Road: India (2013)

People are voting emotionally.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

'HIT THE ROAD: India': Four Stars (Out of Five)A documentary film set in India about a 12-day race, from Mumbai to Chennai, involving rickshaws. It follows two men (Richard Gazarian and Keith King) as they compete in the challenge. Gor and Mushegh Baghdasaryan directed the 80 minute road movie. I'd say it's worth seeing just for it's stunning cinematography alone; don't expect any story or character depth but visually it's definitely a treat!The movie only follows the team of Gazarian and King, as their motorized rickshaw has a lot of trouble from the get-go. They're forced to constantly rely on help (provided by the race) and are continuously lagging behind the other competitors. They do find some success later in their journey though as they enjoy India's breathtaking scenery and interesting locals. That's what the movie is really all about; experiencing India the way Gazarian and King did. They're outcome in the race isn't really the film's main focus point.Lonely Planet named the film "one of the top-10 greatest adventures of 2012" and it seems to be getting mostly positive reviews as well as great viewer feedback. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit and I can't always get into films like this. It's a little like 'THE AMAZING RACE' I guess, except it just follows one team's adventure (I've never seen a whole episode of that show but, from what I have seen of it, this movie kind of seems similar). The two stars are funny enough to keep the film amusing, although neither is as hilarious as they seem to think they are. That's what makes some people more entertaining though, in my opinion (when they think they're a lot more clever and witty than they actually are). The Baghdasaryans' direction is more than adequate for this type of movie and I was really impressed with their music selections (the way the songs are edited with the film gives it a strong 'music video' feel, for large sections of the movie). It's of course not very educational or informative, if you want to learn a lot about India, but it's definitely beautiful to look at and entertaining enough to warrant it's 80 minute running length.Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAydMPYt0Hs

The basic idea for this documentary is simple. We follow a couple of participants in a race between Chennai and Mumbai in India. The vehicles used are what make it unique. As a nod to their preponderance in India because of their cheapness to run, the contestants all drive the auto-rickshaw, a light-weight mini motor mainly used for taxis. It's the choice of vehicle that ultimately provides most of the drama here, seeing as it is not designed in the slightest for crossing the Indian subcontinent. Unsurprisingly, it constantly breaks down, leading to lots of frustration for the racers. The very fact that this constitutes most of the drama sort of illustrates that not an awful lot actually seems to happen over the course of the race though. The main obstacles are a combination of poor quality roads and the monsoon conditions. The people they encounter along the way, on the other hand, seem pretty much universally nice. The lack of adversity does affect the impact of the film to be honest, as there aren't too many in the way of interesting events along the journey. In this way I guess it ensures that the feel is pretty authentic, however, and you do get a feel for the conditions.Maybe it could have been edited together better though, as sometimes things suddenly happen and people appear and we have no real idea of why. The narrative aspect could definitely have been stronger for sure. And while the photography captures the road well, I often thought it would have been nice if it caught the landscape the racers were passing by more – it has an authentic feel but visually it doesn't necessarily sell India as well as it could. I suppose though it is not so often that we see the unglamorous back roads of this country so in that respect it's fairly interesting. The two racers we follow seem like nice guys though and it's easy to feel their increasing discomfort in their difficult trek cross country. For a small-scale travel documentary this is fine, even if it lacks an overall dynamism to make it last in the memory.

I watch a lot of documentaries, but this was something different from what we're used to see on TV films. It's something like a mixture of an action travel film and a reality show. There's no narration or interviews, it feels like you're actually traveling with the two characters, it feels very live and natural and authentic. It may seem strange sometimes if you're used to television documentaries with tons of narration texts and characters talking to the camera all the time, but this was a pure entertainment for me. Beautiful images and cutting edge editing. Music is also very noteworthy; documentaries are usually not known for having cool soundtracks, but in this film the music was so great that I immediately downloaded all the songs from itunes. You usually expect a cliché type of Indian music when there's "india" in the title, but here you see a hip rickshaw speeding through the jungles with DJ Blaqstarr music on the background, that's just so cool I had to rewind many episodes and watch them over. To summarize; might seem unusual for traditional documentary lovers, but highly recommended and definitely worth checking out.

My wife and I were very excited to see this film having seen the trailer, which was excellent. We have just returned from India in a trip from Chennai to Mumbai so we were really looking forward to seeing some familiar places.Unfortunately we were let down.The film has some interesting moments and characters, but the storytelling and editing is poor. The choice of American/Canadian main characters was a bit bizarre - we would have preferred Indian.The filmmakers got some good shots but unfortunately a lot of them were spoiled by the excessive use of shallow depth of field resulting in many shots out of focus. This is an unfortunate mistake in a documentary film, where they can easily avoid this by using apertures that allow a wider depth of field, which is useful when they need to get shots quickly without having time to prepare in advance for them. However when focus was good there was some nice stuff.The music choice was generally strange throughout the film, with a moody, electronic and indy flavour that was quite dark in general. Yes that sound interesting and hipster-ish, but then you need to go the whole hog and pull it off like David Lynch. It feels like it was simply the wrong choice in this case.I really can't understand why this film currently has a rating of 9.2 from 32 reviewers - this is FAR too high. We bought the film online on the strength of the trailer but feel that perhaps a lower price would be more appropriate.