‘End of the Road’ Review: Highway to Hokey Hillbilly Hell
variety.comDennis Harvey Film Critic “Nobody messes with my family!” shouts Queen Latifah, aiming a revolver at baddies during a late moment in “End of the Road.” It is one of several points in this Netflix thriller where the blatancy of undiluted cliché has an effect rather more comical than intended.
Taking a brisk route from the pedestrian to the preposterous, Millicent Shelton’s slick but silly film diminishes its social-commentary edge by painting an African American family’s cross-country trip in cartoonishly broad terms, imperiled by crazy and/or criminal “crackers” at every junction.
Director and cast do their best — well, maybe not their best, but their competent professional duty — with a formulaic, contrived screenplay.
Still, the results do no one much credit, landing closer to overripe cheese than taut suspense, or even guilty-pleasure terrain. “End” launches on the streamer Sept.
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