Review in a Hurry: Soldiers Cheever (Tim Robbins), T.K. (Michael Peña), and Colee (Rachel McAdams) are back from Iraq and stuck together in a minivan when their flights home are canceled. Then a series of increasingly improbable circumstances forces them on a meandering road trip strangely absent any moral or point.
The Bigger Picture: T.K. has been wounded in a private area and wants to get to Las Vegas to try out his equipment before seeing his fiancée again. Colee wants to give her dead friend's guitar to his family, also in Vegas. Cheever just wants to go home. They rent a car and split the gas.
But when Cheever's wife turns out to be an inhumanly self-centered wench, the three of them go off to Vegas together. Of course, there are life lessons at every stop. None of them are very interesting, however: It's the sort of wisdom you can pick up from a careful reading of Hallmark cards at the grocery store.
What's more, none of the trip feels very real. Despite all the on-location shooting, the whole thing looks like it could have been done on a studio backlot. Aside from the three protagonists, the rest of the characters are one-line clichés. (For example: the bitchy college girls at the bar—would anyone actually mock an Iraq vet with a war wound? Seriously?)
The movie ends up an exercise in marking time, a trip with likeable companions but nothing to show except miles on the odometer at the end.
The 180—a Second Opinion: Robbins, Peña and McAdams are far better than the lines they have to spout, and the chemistry between them is fun to watch.