THE ROAD

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"The Road" is like the proverbial tree that falls in the forest when no human or animal is around. Whether or not it makes a sound is a moot point.

Based on Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel, director John Hillcoat makes no attempt to convert screenwriter Joe Penhall's straight-line rendition into a narrative arc.

It doesn't help that the characters don't have names. Viggo Mortensen plays "the Man."

His 11-year-old son is "the Boy" (played blankly by Kodi Smit-McPhee). After being deserted by "the Wife" (played by Charlize Theron), Man and Boy wander a gray post-apocalyptic America where no explanation of what happened to wipe out most of the country is ever given.

Determined to make it south to the ocean, our homeless duo encounter marauding gangs of murderers and cannibals.

The baddies are menacing enough, but any attendant suspense is blunted by the movie's lack of narrative structure.

The Man has only two bullets in his revolver, reserved for murder-suicide should the situation ever require such desperate measures.

Robert Duvall plays the film's most empathetic character, a fellow traveler on the film's road to nowhere.

"The Road" is a one-note road version of "Waiting for Godot," minus Samuel Beckett's brilliant sense of existentialist humor.

Rated R. 113 mins.