The movie was like a Freddy or Jason film. You know who the killer is, who is going to die and why they are going to die. The film starts out with a girl, Mary Black being abducted while out in the woods skipping rope and playing with her kitty, Shining. Don't worry, if you miss this scene they will show it 3-4 more times. She manages to get out very loud screams even though the killer has his hand over her mouth.
We flash ahead 1 year later, Christmas Eve at a small town police department. Detective Alexander Black was the father of Mary and is having some family problems mainly over the death of Mary a year ago. Then at 8:14 Val Kilmer shows up as "Mr. Nobody" to confess to murders. Val has the eerie appearance of an old fat Jim Morrison and recites various dark lines and truisms such as "It is the job of the police to protect the rich and persecute the poor." He also has his own music as he whistles Mozart, which sounds a little like the opening of "Lassie" for you old timers.
The soundtrack is a combination of Mozart and Metal. It was good, but it really had an opportunity to make the film. We soon find out that the cops who are on duty had clubbed a drifter into a coma attempting to get him to confess to the killing of Mary Black. They show the torture scene about 6 times. The drifter (never called The Traveler, perhaps "Drifter" was already taken) was beaten with a shovel, baton, fist, hung, whipped, and suffocated. Oh yes and stuck with a pen.
Our Traveler is here to get revenge in a strange and supernatural way, which the police quickly figure out. As he confesses to a killing, he is actually describing how a police officer is being killed.
I found the movie to be "Twilight Zone-like" at times, and Kilmer, attempting to be the new thinking man's Freddy. His slow monotone speeches are reminiscent of his Morrison readings. I saw this as a film version of dark poetry with cult status potential.
No sex. No nudity. Does contain blood, guts and torture.
The Traveler
2010
Action / Adventure / Crime / Horror / Mystery / Thriller
The Traveler
2010
Action / Adventure / Crime / Horror / Mystery / Thriller
Plot summary
On a dark Christmas Eve in a small town, the lone Sheriffs on the night shift encounter a mysterious man who goes by the name of Mr. Nobody. As the night progresses, the Sheriffs discover that this isn't just a nobody, but a vengeful killer whose past threatens to haunt them all.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
July 13, 2018 at 01:09 AM
Director
Top cast
Movie Reviews
Dark Poetry
Val Kilmer Kills People
A man (Val Kilmer) walks into a police station and says he is confessing to a murder. Unfortunately for the police, he will not give his name and will not volunteer much else.
We should talk about Val Kilmer. Another reviewer said he was like wax, and despite being a great actor has really slipped into some terrible roles. Kilmer's career as a whole is mess -- for every outstanding role he has had, he has had two terrible ones. Do directors simply not know how to utilize him?
This movie as a whole would have been better if someone else handled it. The acting is a bit weak, the direction is average. The musical score is actually quite good, and the general plot is creative and clever -- again, if someone else had made it, this could have been a big hit. (Heck, imagine this in the hands of David Fincher.)
"They Pay You for the Bad Ones Too..."
When asked about a particular cinematic floater in which he had appeared, Robert Mitchum replied, "They pay you for the bad ones too!" I am assuming that Val Kilmer has adopted that as his personal mantra to get him through this latest phase of his career. So far in the past week I have watched Kilmer in The Traveler, Streets of Blood and The Thaw and all of them are terrible.Not his fault, of course, he's just an actor. He is forced to deal with the scripts he is given.
The Traveler shows promise at the start, despite the derivative nature of the script and the stereotypes that take the place of characters. Once the supernatural huggery-muggery begins that promise rapidly begins to fade. The story makes no sense. At first it is hinted that Kilmer is the ghost of a wrongly killed man and he is going to enact revenge on the deserving occupants of the police station a la High Plains Drifter. If the script would have stayed with that angle it might have produced an interesting film,if only on the simplistic and preachy level of an old Twilight Zone. But the pernicious influence of M. Night Shyamalan on a whole generation of screenwriters forces the offending scripter to try a big twist at the end and--a common failing with gimmicks of this type--the big reveal is absurd and makes no sense. It also invalidates everything that came before in terms of logic or coherence. Ah well, better luck next time.