‘On the Road’ Trailer Thoughts

Jack Kerouac’s autobiographical novel, “On The Road,” hailed by many as the most revered book from the Beat generation, takes the leap to the big-screen this year in Walter Salles’s film of the same name.

Garrett Hedlund leads the cast as he takes on the monumental role as the carefree adventurous Dean Moriarty. After Hedlund’s role as Sam Flynn in Daft Punk’s three-dimensional electro-dance-tech-opera “Tron: Legacy” there should be some reservation to if Hedlund is ready for such a role. In the first half of “Tron,” Hedlund entertained audiences as a rebellious digital vigilante, riding through Gotham on his Ducati, daringly maneuvered and outwitted society to get his own way. Hedlund had the rebel role down pat, but then when it came time to act, the little token acting that a Disney film ever required from actors, Hedlund escaped thanks to the amazing computer generated environments that distracted his sub-par performance.

In the trailer of “On The Road,” Hedlund is quickly shuffled from the driver of a screeching rubber burning classic Chevrolet to the various scenes in the journey across the old West of the ’50s. From the early peaks into the movie it looks like Hedlund is ready to deliver a more developed character, and here the opportunity could not have be more rewarding.

The English actor Sam Riley leads the cast as Sal Paradise, who, Kerouac admitted, is based on the notorious beat novelist himself. The trailer gives us a taste of Riley’s best take of an aged raspy voice of an enlightened journeyman, the open road, with Riley staring into the distance before taking a drag from a rolled joint. Riley as Paradise is a wise pick. This isn’t the first time the actor pulls on the coat of a cultural icon, as the 2007 biopic of Ian Curtis, the enigmatic lead singer of Joy Division, “Control,” proved Riley is an actor of a stretched emotional elasticity.

Taking a breather from vampires and werewolves, Kristen Stewart brings her signature biting lower lips to play the pretty dumb blonde from Colorado, Moriarty’s first wife, Marylou. The trailer teases a shirtless Marylou; ticket sales would certainly benefit from a Stewart nude scene, a spell that surely will lure scores of “Twilight” fans.

When a popular novel is turned to a film, the knee jerk reaction is to expect a flop. However, the team behind this film holds great promise to avoid such an ill fate. Salles, cinematographer Eric Gautier, screenwriter Jose Rivera, and composer Gustavo Sataolalla, are the men behind “The Motorcycle Diaries,” the dramatization of Che Guevara’s life changing road trip- they reunite to once again reincarnate iconic souls for the silver screen.

What the trailer tells one about “On The Road” is that it essentially pledges to take a cash crop of budding, young, and talented cast and pair them with highly acclaimed off-screen leaders, to deliver a film we all hope will reach the mad and desirous passion Kerouac left in his novel.