I like Beau Bridges as an actor, which is likely how I found myself watching a film where he is the big name draw, and it has no audio description. Beau Bridges may have had a few films he starred in back in the day, but it has been a long time since he toplined a movie. The Neon Highway isn’t even his movie, he just hijacks it.
The Neon Highway starts off with two brothers looking to make it big in country music. They have a great song, and a label is interested. But, when the brothers find out the label wants only one of them, they wind up in a car accident, and their music career is in the rear view. Flash forward to years later, and one of the brothers is trying to support his family, and realizes he has a country music legend nearby. He offers to sell the legend (Bridges) his song, but Bridges decides instead to use this as an opportunity to swindle himself back into Nashville and be relevant again, and takes this talented singer/songwriter along for the ride… on the neon highway.
The title of the movie is the title of the catchy tune, but sadly without audio description, I never got that Neon appeal. The car crash, as well as what exactly happened to the two brothers is a mystery. If someone is in a wheelchair, I’d never know it.And considering Bridges is the only cast member I know, I have no point of reference as to what anyone in this film looks like. I could certainly assume an all white cast, because country music certainly skews that way, but I also don’t know who is tall, short, old, young, skinny, fat, hair color, or if they’re even wearing clothes. I know zipity doo da about them.
Netflix doe a lot right when it comes to audio description, but it could also pressure these companies providing these indies no one has ever heard of into providing accessibility.After all, isn’t it more valuable to have more people talking positively about a small Beau Bridges movie, than one of the few reviews on it being the grade this is getting? Yeah, it’s a pretty standard plot, but there’s still quite a lot I miss as a blind viewer when you don’t provide audio description.
Final Grade: Unwatchable
