It’s easy to cast stones, having never produced a movie myself, but I felt there were some glaring mistakes in The Road that any half-witted director should have gotten right. Yes, I understand it’s metaphorical, but it wouldn’t hurt to get it right.
- A can of Coke would not retain it’s fizzyness over the years, certainly not through a few thousand freeze-thaw cycles. I am not the only one with problems about this.
- When Robert Duvall’s character is given a can of fruit salad (or something) he throws it up. But then he appears to leave the regurgitation. No! Someone starving to death will happily eat vomit.
- The cellar where the bad guys are keeping people before eating them. Sure, storing meat isn’t a bad idea, but why keep the people alive and naked and together? Naked is dumb, as they will get cold and shiver and burn fat and muscle. Together is dumb, as they are presumably starving and might eat each other. And alive is the dumbest. Have you not heard of beef jerky? Have you never seen Slim Jims at the counter of 7-11? Meat can be cured, dried, salted, put in brine, smoked, anything. Hell, if it’s cold enough you can just keep the meat frozen.
- Lack of shoes. I can understand if people are starving, but they won’t be running out of shoes. Why? Presuming most humans die at the hands of other humans, and shoes are a valuable commodity, the killer will take the better pair of shoes (possibly both). Or, when humans commit suicide or die (our protagonist found 3 suicides and 1 death) their shoes can be taken. As long as the half life of a human is less than the half life of a pair of shoes, then shoes will move up the food chain, the same way mercury does in fish or DDT did when it killed the bald eagles.
If I knew more economics, I could write a proper equation. But basically, as long as (the half life of shoes times fraction of shoes discarded times shoes on someone who dies and their body is undiscovered) is greater than (the half life of humans), there will be a surplus of shoes. This equation does not work if shoes have a finite lifetime (they do, but the movie is set before that lifetime), and admittedly cannibals will have more shoes than non-cannibals. If some economist would write a proper equation in the comments, I’d be most grateful.
- Lack of guns / ammo. This is AMERICA for crying out loud. We’re going to run out of people long before we run out of guns. Like shoes, guns will move up the food chain. Ammo, admittedly, might be scarce. But with no animals left, what are you shooting at besides other humans? Target practicing?
That’s just the impossibilities. The characters make some really stupid decisions, mainly the father.
- Leaving the underground bunker. If it has been undiscovered for 10 years, hearing something that might be a dog or a human wander by is not a good reason to leave. Stay there until the food is gone (or mostly gone) then move on. Build up strength and fat reserves.
- Pulling a cart along the beach. Hello? Carts leave wheel tracks, and anyone following you is going to presume you have food – what else would you be carrying, a flat screen TV? Even if you are pulling a cart for fun, you are still potential food and healthy enough to haul a cart. It’s like a sign that says Please Eat Me! Duh – stay off the beach.
- Not killing the second person shooting arrows at them. I don’t care if you’re trying to be a ‘good guy’. There’s some screaming angry woman with a bow and arrow and you just killed her husband in a post-apocalyptic anarchy. She will probably try to shoot you again as you walk out the building. If you won’t kill her, at least take the weapon, it might come in handy and she won’t be able to shoot you with it 1 minute later.
- Hiking with a bleeding leg wound. Animals are smarter – they hole up and lick their wounds. Duh. Take some Penicillin (you DID take it from the well stocked bomb-shelter, right?) and spend a week recovering.
OK, I’m done. Maybe I’m just petty, but these things seriously bothered me when watching the movie.
