Fantastic!

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The Three Acts: The initial tableaux: The film starts with a short depiction of the abduction of a young girl by an out-of- focus kidnapper.We jump forward a year to the present day on a rainy Christmas Eve night. Desk Sargeant Gulloy is a fussy man who is the omega male of the group at the Sheriff's station. He does not care for the loud, foul, disgusting speech of his coworkers at the station, or their generally inconsiderate actions, like leaving the door open for the cold and rain to flow in, canceling the central heating. His passive aggressive approach clashes with the classless alphas early and often.The interactions of the four deputies are primitive and adolescent. Evidently psych tests were not required to obtain their jobs. Detective Black is the father of Mary, the girl abducted in the first scene.To complete the initial scenery, Mr Nobody enters the station, and tells Gulloy that he would like to confess to murder. The state cops come by to tell them that they are going to close down the off ramp from the Interstate due to a major accident. The station will be more isolated than usual, and many things are not working due to the holiday. That's where we are when the action of the story begins.Delineation of conflicts: The deputies and the desk sergeant despise each other. The detective's wife is phasing into a breakup with him. The detective is held in contempt by the deputies since he was promoted over them to detective. The detective is in a depressed phase since he has not been able to solve his daughter's disappearance.Mr Nobody is not especially compliant with the orders of the cops. Clearly, he holds them in contempt, and the cops are not happy with his lack of obedience.Have they already met Mr Nobody? Will any of them get a bit of closure about their failed pursuit of Mary's murderer?Resolution: The police think they have a confessed murderer. Only late in the film do they realise that his confessions are to their detriment.

Set on Christmas Eve, but don't expect any festive fun in this revenge thriller, which features Val Kilmer as an apparently innocent man who was beaten to death by six cops, and now he returns from beyond the grave to seek vengeance on those same lawmen. And whatdya know... They're the only people in the station that evening. All of his victims die in ways related to to the part they played in his demise, e.g the one who tied him up gets hanged with a rope, the one who beat him with the shovel is disemboweled with a spade... you know how it goes. These are some slow-witted officers though... they only start to try to kill him after the second victim croaks, and they finally figure out what is going on after the third dude gets wasted. I hear they're experts at donut rationing though...Kilmer may think he is scary with his random whistling and blank stare, but believe me... he isn't. He's like a fifth rate clone of Harry Powell from Night Of The Hunter. Sadly, the director disagrees... so we get lots of shots of his expressionless face performing three bars from Mozart's 'Death Mask'. This gets tedious real soon, but not as much as repeated flashbacks of his torture, or the abduction of the girl he was accused of killing. Is any of this necessary? Nope. The word 'padding' comes to mind. I also must bring up the bits near the end, where you get the feeling the scriptwriter just threw his pen away and said "Anything Goes". The deaths get REALLY stupid, the plots twists get REALLY desperate, and as for the deus ex machina (I've been waiting to use THAT term for a while) that saves the day... Well, let me sum it up for you. PUR-LEASE.Final thought: I bet Kilmer's wage took up more than half the budget. Just a hunch. 4/10

The good : if an ambiguously (decent) budgeted horror movie that 'looks' glossy and seemingly has good editing taking place mostly in the dark is enough to make a movie good or scary for you, and you're a val fan, then maybe this movie is for you.For me, it started somewhat interesting, and then unfolded like the Christmas present you never wanted but totally saw coming. Val's face looks so worked on/swollen and puffy that he's either suffering from alcoholism (i'm just guessing here) or some really bad cosmetic surgery. He looks like a 50 year old German transvestite in a muscle(ish) body. It's just ackward. His face and hair are the scariest parts of this movie.The kills are pretty lame only one was decent and that's only by comparison. Keep on Travelin'

A nameless drifter (Val Kilmer) ambles into a police department in the middle of the night to tell the night watchman that he has killed six people. Arrested and booked, the drifter tells Detective Black (Dylan Neal) that the murders haven't happened yet. The six police officers quickly find that the man in their captivity is describing what will happen to them throughout the night.Val Kilmer's newest straight-to-video offering is a clever, definitely creepy idea that never quite connects with the themes it tries to make or the audience is tries to draw. Kilmer has staked his claim with low-budget action, now he tries his hand at horror. He's just short of what could have been a royal flush."The Traveler" has some aspects in its favor. Kilmer ably performs the mysterious stranger, though his performance seems to unravel as the film draws to a close. John Cassini and Chris Gauthier play two of the potential victims and come close to being memorable. The latter especially does his best with what he has and makes a sympathetic performance. Though no one matches Dylan Neal, who is the strongest of the cast as the detective with something to hide."The Traveler" is also not without its faults. Clichéd, hackneyed characters do little to make the film better. As the film continues on, it faces problems with continuity and elaboration on exactly who the stranger is. The biggest downturn is the script, which offers fewer and fewer answers to the questions it asks and doesn't seem interested in answering any of them by the end, leaving me a puzzled viewer.I give it a well-deserved five out of ten stars. It's a solid effort and worth a watch if you want a film that both makes you think and turns your brain off.