Roadie is a pretty good movie that's only about so-so while you're watching it, however the movie really resonated with me in the days after watching it. I appreciated the effort to make Ron Eldard's character more then just a one dimensional lump of regret...i also like his constant flip flopping between "what have i got to be regretful of? i did what i wanted to!" and "i've totally wasted my life" throughout, as i think that's exactly what a guy in his situation in real life would think upon coming home after twenty five years on the road only to realize he's right back where he was when he first left. While the interactions between Ron Eldard and the rest of the cast kind of go back and fourth on the believable scale (Bobby Cannavale and Jill Hennessey are merely so-so as respectively a guy who used to taunt him in high school and his wife who was a long ago crush for Ron Eldard's character..it probably doesn't help that neither of these characters are likable in the least.) Its Ron Eldard himself who keeps this movie going forward...there are a lot of little moments throughout where his reaction to what's going on in front of him is perfect. Eldard really captures both the self-centeredness and the basic good heartedness of this guy...and while the director and the writer deserve all the credit for keeping this character from veering too far into either direction--it really falls to Eldard to keep him from appearing to be both a selfish jerk and a mopey sad sack punching bag for the rest of the clearly unhappy people in the film to abuse. It really is a good performance that makes the whole film really seem a lot better then it prob would be with somebody else in the lead. Again as a whole the film is only all right--but as a character study of this guy trying to figure out the rest of his life while burdened with guilt about how he led the majority of his life so far--it was quite well done.
Also as someone who lives here--i did love the full on location shooting that's happening here, while i could do without Jill Hennesey's condescending attitude towards "never leaving queens" i did love seeing certain locations on screen--enough to wanna shout "that's near my house" to anyone who was in the theater with me (of course seeing as how there were only about two other people there--i wisely did not.)
