High Road Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

High Road Blu-ray Movie Review

Emphasis on "high" or "road?"

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 5, 2012

I get high a lot.

High Road doesn't always make a whole lot of sense. But that seems to be the point. It's an odd hybrid, playing as something along the lines of the Stoner film that strives to be smarter than the average Stoner film. There's a real plot and an honest effort to find some meaning and even heart in the end, but audiences will have to decide if the intersection of standard Road Trip/Chase movie plot with strangely-crafted characters, a meandering structure, and general oddities are enough to warrant a watch. To be sure, it's all in the execution for a movie like High Road. Director Matt Walsh's picture is part Chase film, part Road Trip movie, part Sketch film, part Druggie flick, part RomCom, and part a whole-bunch-more. It's a smorgasbord of stuff, some of which works, some of which doesn't. When it doesn't yield the occasional laugh, it goes downhill fast, lingering on scenes that wear out their welcome or focusing on characters and events with little real bearing on the story. Indeed, High Road might be the most aimless movie with an identifiable and steady plot ever made, and that's what makes it so interesting and at the same time so odd. It pulls off the juxtaposition between telling a story but really going nowhere at the same time quite well, which, maybe, was the intention all along. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it would seem that High Road is more about the experience than it is the nitty-gritty details of the plot and the characters that define it.

Lots of trouble.

Bad news: the band's breaking up. Two of the three members are leaving to peruse other ventures, leaving poor Fritz (James Pumphrey) all alone. Unfortunately, Fritz doesn't know what to do with himself and without the band, but he does know one thing: that any three things can form a triangle. Hooray for pot-smoking logic! Three months have passed since the tragic break-up, and Fritz still hasn't managed to sort things out. Although he's still with his longtime girlfriend Monica (Abby Elliott), the rest of his life is pretty much in shambles. He deals dope out of his garage, and if the client requests, elsewhere, like in the middle of the liquor store. And that's where trouble strikes. When Fritz's buyer is nabbed by the law, Fritz runs for his freedom, even though the pursuing cop barely bothers to give chase. But he doesn't know that. His solution: go on the lam, dump everything, destroy the evidence back home, and run. With everything else that's gone wrong of late, he just can't have it all lead to time in the slammer.

In the heat of escape, Fritz manages to bring teenager Jimmy (Dylan O'Brien) along for the ride. Jimmy's got troubles of his own. His father (Rob Riggle) is fed up with his routine of skipping school to hang out with Fritz. He's putting his foot down, threatening to send Jimmy away to military school and force his son to shape up. Jimmy's father, both before and after Fritz clubs him on the head, manages to collect just enough information on Fritz and Jimmy to begin a pursuit. He seeks out the help of a police academy gym attendant, Fogerty (Joe Lo Truglio), to aid in the pursuit. Meanwhile, Monica is devastated to learn that Fritz has been dealing drugs out of his garage. She's desperate to find her man, hoping to share with him some good news and sort out whether they have a future together, but not before her crude and self-centered TV boss Barry (Ed Helms) tries to wiggle his way into her life.

Random. There's the one-word review. Sometimes it seems like High Road was made by the method that champions throwing a bunch of stuff into a blender and then tossing the end results at the wall and seeing what sticks. The movie offers a nearly endless parade of oddball characters, strange scenes, and weird events, even as it follows its basic premise of two people on the run and a girl chasing down her man as she tries to sort out her future. The movie by its very structure seems to ask of its audience to just go with the flow, to take it all in and see what comes back out. It's innocent fun and it seems the cast had quite a bit of fun making it. The character interactions are largely superb; there's a lot of chemistry (or in the case of Monica and Barry, anti-chemsitry) here, whether between Fritz and Jeremy or Fogerty and Jimmy's father, the latter pairing stealing the show with every scene with their well-timed humor and perfectly in-step cadence. The direction is simple but does well to involve the audience in the film with a fair amount of handheld work that makes the viewer almost a participant and not simply an observer. Yet it all comes back to the randomness of the entire thing. The plot isn't always perfectly developed or the characters seamlessly rounded into shape, but for a movie that was made pretty much on the fly -- literally, the entire thing was apparently improvised -- one can't help but to admire the effort.

High Road Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

High Road's 1080p Blu-ray transfer isn't perfect, but it's a serviceable, bright, and nicely detailed picture that suits the movie well. Indeed, fine detailing is strong. The glossy and somewhat flat HD video source yields complex facial lines, beads of sweat, and facial hair with ease. Worn-down signs and building façades around town prove sharp and natural. The image is perhaps a little too sharp at times, and there are some scattered edge halos throughout. Colors are vibrant but steady, whether the baseball card posters in Jimmy's room, denim, bright red costumes, or blue skies. Flesh tones appear accurate throughout. Unfortunately, light banding and aliasing are also causes for concern, but the bright, shiny, colorful, and nicely detailed veneer should satisfy audiences expecting a straightforward HD presentation.

High Road Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

High Road's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack gets the job done. The opening music -- the band's last gig -- enjoys a strong live performance vibe and a solid bass line. It's a touch mushy, but it's supposed to be: it's a local band playing in a local bar, not The Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden. General score plays with fine clarity, fair space, and a solid low end. Light ambience fills in some outdoor scenes, and more specific sound effects -- the annoying blaring of a smoke detector as heard early in the film, for instance -- play with suitable clarity. Dialogue is consistently accurate and grounded in the front-middle portion of the soundstage. This is nothing exciting, but Millennium's track handles the film's every sonic elements with satisfactory ease.

High Road Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

High Road contains cast and crew interviews (1080p, 15:13) with Horatio Sanz, James Pumphrey, Joe Lo Truglio, and Lizzy Caplan which are one-third serious and two-thirds comical. Discussions include shooting an improvised movie, character traits, the challenges of the film, the work of the cast, shaping the characters, and costuming. Also included are trailers for other Millennium titles.

High Road Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

High Road, it seems, isn't really supposed to make a whole lot of sense. Though its basic plot is easy enough to follow, the movie's sheer randomness guarantees a unique watch, to say the least. It's rather aimless even as it follows a structured story. The characters are the real selling point, all enjoying a rather good chemistry and their energy and improvisation giving the picture a little more excitement than it might have otherwise enjoyed with a more structured approach. Maybe the movie works better while high, but even for audiences on the straight-and-narrow, High Road proves to be a serviceable and somewhat unique little venture that's worth checking out. Millennium's Blu-ray release of High Road features decent video and audio along with one supplement. Worth a rental.