Queen Latifah fights Nazis in "End of the Road," and not even that bit of ridiculousness can save this inept thriller from being one of the year's most hapless films.
Latifah plays Brenda, a mother moving her family from Los Angeles to Houston after the death of her husband. She's joined by her two children, Cam and Kelly (Shaun Dixon and Mychala Lee) as well as her well meaning screw-up of a little brother, Reggie (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges).
What should be an easy journey — they've allowed themselves three days for the 1,500 mile trek — turns into anything but as Brenda and her family are witnesses to a murder and wind up on a wild goose chase with a bag of stolen cash in their possession. And director Millicent Shelton can never quite figure out what kind of movie she's making, and it ends up as uncooked as meat on a grill that no one bothered to light.
Beau Bridges plays a law official hot on the trail of the mysterious Mr. Cross, a ruthless drug cartel kingpin whose mere name sends shivers up the spines of even the most hardened gangsters. Cross and his goons talk on the phone using voice disguisers that sound like cheap-o devices copped from Spirit Halloween; it's hard to be scared of someone that sounds like a teenager making a prank call.
After Reggie helps himself to a bag of cash from a crime scene, Brenda just wants to give it back, a transaction that screenwriters Christopher J. Moore and David Loughery hilariously overcomplicate. Twists that are so telegraphed they might as well come with glowing neon signs, nighttime scenes are lit to look like fluorescent carnivals, and Latifah is forced into some truly cringeworthy dialogue (her character is a nurse, so at one point she serves up the official medical declaration, "I know what a dead dude is").
And yes, in what is one of the least convincing fight sequences this side of "The Equalizer," Latifah's character goes toe to toe with a gang of Nazis. It would be the moment that "End of the Road" officially goes off the rails, but that implies it was ever on them to begin with.
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'END OF THE ROAD'
Grade: D-
MPAA rating: R (for some strong/bloody violence, drug use, sexual content, and language)
Running time: 1:31
How to watch: Netflix
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