If there's one thing we love as Americans, it's baseball. If there's two things we love, it's baseball and a good road-trip movie. If there's three things we love, it's baseball, a good road-trip movie, and daddy issues. I suppose I could continue this structure and suggest the fourth thing is Jeff Bridges, but really I'm just trying to get around to the fact that a little flick called The Open Road is coming to Blu-Ray and DVD November 17th, and it combines all three (four?) of these elements into a comedy about the strained relationship between a baseball legend and his son.

Justin Timberlake plays minor league baseball player Carlton Garrett, who takes off on a road trip to find his estranged, baseball-legend father, Kyle (Bridges), after his mother (Mary Steenburgen) becomes sick. Along for the ride is Carlton's girlfriend, Lucy (Kate Mara), and even once they find Kyle, they still have to survive the drive from Ohio to Houston without killing each other.

Writer/director Michael Meredith's previous credits are a couple of other indie movies I'm not familiar with, so he's a big question mark, but the cast is promising. Bridges is enjoyable even when the source material isn't, and Timberlake has proven to be surprisingly talented at both drama (Alpha Dog, Black Snake Moan) and comedy (he's practically become a regular on SNL). Both the Blu-ray and DVD include audio commentary with writer/director Meredith and a "Behind the Scenes of The Open Road" featurette.