Wuchak Released in 2010, "The Way" stars Martin Sheen as a grieving father who decides to hike Camino de Santiago (aka the Way of St. James), a popular 500-mile trail in northern Spain. There he teams-up with three other solo hikers (Yorick van Wageningen, Deborah Kara Unger & James Nesbitt). Can he work through his grim grief and find inspiration? The movie was produced, directed and written by Estevez based on the book by Jack Hitt. He even plays the star's son in a relatively small role. While there's a lot of good in this movie, like the excellent locations, cast, music, cinematography and message, it's palpably flawed by some weak writing and the corresponding unconvincing social situations. Several scenes needed the kinks worked out, but I'm not blaming the actors. I'm sure they did the best they could with the script they had.A top example of what I'm talking about is when our curmudgeonly protagonist has some kind of drunken meltdown, awkwardly blowing up at his new friends. Sequences like this needed further work, but I'm guessing that Estevez didn't have the funds because fixing & reshooting scenes costs money (the proverbial "time is money"). So, as an unseasoned director, he shot them and said "That's good enough," thinking he could make the movie work in the editing room. It didn't. But there's still some worthwhile material here.Check out 2015's "A Walk in the Woods" with Robert Redford & Nick Nolte for an excellent take on similar terrain.The movie runs 121 minutes and was shot on the actual trail in Spain.GRADE: C-

Paul McGuiness The premise of this film doesn't sound too bad: 'A father heads overseas to recover the body of his estranged son who died while travelling the "El camino de Santiago," and decides to take the pilgrimage himself.' If you can imagine a good film along those lines then I'd recommend leaving it at that. If there's one lesson to be learnt from this movie, it's that life is too precious to waste two hours of yours watching it.Martin Sheen's decent performance in the face of a weak plot, unconvincing dialogue and substandard production values is one of the only redeeming features. He described it as the best role that had ever been written for him but you have to wonder if he would have said that or indeed gone anywhere near this project had his son not been the writer and director.I have recently done this walk and it is a great experience. There are incredible vistas along the way as well as long barren stretches, none of which are captured here with any great degree of skill or imagination. It looks like someone's first attempt having done an evening course in filmmaking and, checking out the director's filmography, that's not (relatively speaking) too far off the mark.You also meet interesting characters along the actual Camino but being real, three-dimensional people, they bear absolutely no resemblance to the ones depicted here. One of the few things that the makers of this production actually managed to achieve was matching the general quality of the acting performances with the quality of everything else - it was all below par.With a running time of 2 hours (that feels like an eternity) you can't help but feel that they should have been a bit more liberal with the scissors in the editing suite. It does beg the question though: which bits would actually merit being left in?You may get the impression that I'm not the kind of person this film is aimed at. On the contrary, I imagine that my sensibilities would put me very much in the target market. My favourite films are ones with themes of hope, fraternity and triumph of the human spirit. I think The Way attempts to capture these motifs but just doesn't manage it in any sense.One of the genres listed for this film is comedy but the only really humorous aspect of it unfolds as it descends into a surreal game of "Where's Wally?" as you wonder 'where is the wally responsible for writing and directing this thing going to pop up next?'...Every now and then Emilio Estevez's dead character (who looks more like a swollen corpse than I think was the intention) jarringly appears in more and more ridiculous places. It really wouldn't have seemed that incongruous had his head popped out of a toilet as Sheen's Tom had gone to relieve himself from the torture of having to converse with his insufferable walking companions.Unfortunately the worst legacy of this film is that it is ruining the Camino de Santiago not just in its second-rate depiction of it but in actuality as thousands of baby boomer retired Americans flock to France and Spain in order to find themselves and presumably implausible fat Dutchmen called Joost and obnoxious Canadian women called Sarah. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against anyone doing the walk who wants to and certainly nothing against the people of that great country. But when you've walked 30km to your destination with a 15kg pack on your back only to be greeted by people piling out of a taxi, having paid for their bags to be sent on, joining the queue for the accommodation that's meant to be reserved for walkers it does leave a bit of a bitter taste in the mouth. This is especially true when it means that you have to either sleep outside (this actually happened) or walk another 6km to the next town with no guarantee of a place to stay there either.Also, don't think that my experiences on the walk clouded my objective view of this film. I was looking forward to seeing what had inspired so many people to make their trip and was hoping to relive the countless positive memories I'd had. This just wasn't what I found.You never really find out what it was that killed Estevez's character in The Way, I can only assume that this and indeed the whole film is some kind of a metaphor for the suicide note to his directing career that it is.

WILL It always amazes me when a film that seems to have a commitment to quality and message, fails at something so important as subtitles for the hard of hearing. Albeit a supposedly small faction of the movie-going community, people who need captions are usually making an effort when they choose to watch a film. There does not seem to be any way to contact The Way makers, so i hope this comment somehow reaches them.Having said the above, it behooves me to add that the film definitely makes me want to go trekking in Spain. That's the great visual part. There are unbelievable vistas that add to the spiritual dimension, and give it a quality of mysticism that goes beyond a particular faith. It reaches for joy through the sadness of a story about loss, and puts the individual in a situation where being with others and respecting them is more important than just being an isolated individual.

Patty Mooney I found this title when searching for movies about Backpacking. There are not many of them, so when I came across "The Way" I ordered it from my local library and patiently awaited its arrival.I have always appreciated the acting chops of Martin Sheen. And what a nice surprise to see that his son Emilio is also a wonderful actor, and so much more - literally - down to Earth than the other son. This is the story of a father who is going about his habitual life - seeing patients in his ophthalmology office, playing golf and drinking beers with his buddies, and yet something is missing - an understanding of his son Daniel's desire to travel the world. Unfortunately, he just doesn't get it, and even makes judgments about Daniel's decision to quit school and learn Anthropology from actually being with people in different social situations.The "spoiler," as you can see on the box cover and in any other review on this movie, is that when Tom learns that his son was killed on a French mountain, Tom's life is shifted to a place where he steps into his son's shoes to complete the pilgrimage upon which Daniel had embarked. I laughed and cried and marveled at the deft fingers of Emilio Estevez as he wove a wonderful tale of father and son and each one's search for himself on the beautiful panorama known as El Camino de Santiago. Masterful and heart-rending, I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves Nature and is ready to engage in an inner search.