End of the Road review – Queen Latifah finds a dead end in clumsy Netflix thriller

Queen Latifah plays Brenda, a woman mourning her late husband, in End of the Road. Photograph: Ursula Coyote/Netflix

In the Netflix thriller End of the Road, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges’ character Reggie finds himself in an isolated roadside motel, staring down a bag full of shrink-wrapped cash stashed near a man left for dead. Reggie grabs that bag, ignoring the lessons learned in movies like No Country for Old Men and A Simple Plan, where easy money comes with a body count.

Maybe Reggie felt the rules in that genre don’t apply since those movies were always about white people. End of the Road sets itself apart chiefly by leaning into its Black cast and crew, headlined by Queen Latifah. The movie climaxes with her announcing, “I make my own rules.”