STUDIO: RTV Pictures
STARRING: Mike Reilly, Julia Anderson, Peter Abrams, Poppi Reiner, and Winston Brown
DIRECTED BY: Mike Reilly
WRITTEN BY: Mike Reilly
GENRE: Drama
RATING: NR

There's something so great about a movie that comes completely out of nowhere. As many times as I've stood in line to see a blockbuster or marked days off a calendar for a summer movie that I knew I was going to love, it's the movies that you don't see coming that truly make magic of this thing called celluloid. And I'm not alone. While Spider-Man 3 and At World's End were disappointing millions last summer, a little Irish movie called Once and a cute independent comedy called Waitress were making audiences smile from ear to ear. But those movies had the weight of Fox Searchlight behind him. How do you see the TRUE independents? For the most part, you have to go to film festivals to find them and as anyone who has waded through the trash bin of most fests can tell you, independent doesn't always mean good. There are as many, if not more, bad arthouse movies as blockbusters. Anyone who's been accredited or bought a multi-day pass to a festival will tell you - there's often a reason a lot of these movies don't get distribution. But, a few times a year, there's a movie that makes the festival rounds that is not only worth your time but better than a lot of the widely released films at the multiplex.

The current film that at least should be a festival darling and hopefully will find an audience big enough to make it more is called Road to Victory. The drama written, directed, produced, and starring Mike Reilly has been a favorite at a few festivals and is playing the First Take Film Festival in Augusta, Georgia this weekend. If you're lucky enough to be nearby, you really should go and, if you're not, keep note of the title to see if it makes a fest near you or eventually hits a DVD store. It's not only worth your time but marks the debut of a very talented writer worth watching. Check out the website here.

Road to Victory is a clearly personal and strikingly honest story about something that's not usually handled with any sort of seriousness in major films or television - male impotence. Reilly wrote, directed, and plays Elliot, an injured college athlete who, while trying to recover off the field, falls in love with a stripper named Anna (Julia Anderson). Elliot can't perform on the field and he can no longer perform sexually with his new girlfriend. The pressure to perform in every way - as a star athlete and as a traditional "man" - drives Elliot to severe depression and puts both his draft status as an athlete and his love life in jeopardy. Road to Victory is not only about what drives a man to success but what he does when the road changes and the end zone becomes something and somewhere else. The film daringly deals with several rarely seen elements of the life of a young man including steroids, the health care industry, the world of competitive athletics, and how important sex is to a relationship.

Reilly's screenplay is the strongest element of Road to Victory for one simple reason - it takes itself seriously. It's honest and daring work that uses issues that could easily have been treated as melodramatic cliches or, much worse, objects of humor and handles them respectively and believably. Impotence is an issue that's still treated with giggles on sitcoms or goofy Viagra commercials. The subject matter was risky and Reilly deserves credit for writing a film that handles the seriousness of it appropriately and even heartbreakingly. If there's a flaw in Victory, it's that, like a lot of young writers, Reilly writes better for himself than his co-star. Elliot's journey and behavior always feels believable but there are a few things that come out of Anna's mouth that sound like a writer more than something anyone would actually say to a supposed loved one.

Finally, there are times in Road to Victory where Reilly is a better writer than director. The pacing is a bit off - the opening scenes in particular seem to take too much time with the credits running over five minutes - and the film seems to end too abruptly without enough dramatic urgency in the final act. But his pacing as a director will get better over time and he does deserve credit for directing a supporting cast who feel much more believable than the traditionally stilted acting that you usually find in independent films.

Road to Victory isn't a perfect film but how many independently produced debuts are? It is a film that deserves your attention, if just to note that someone is handling a serious subject like impotence with respect and to mark the debut of a multi-talented young man who will almost undoubtedly find his way off the festival circuit and into the multiplex if he so desires.