A Lonely Place to Die
Melissa George stars in this fast-paced action thriller about a group of mountaineers who discover a girl locked in an underground cell and uncover a kidnapping plot. After securing the child and planning to get her off the mountain into the safety of the city, the group is set upon by the cold and calculating kidnappers who see no reason to keep anybody but the child alive. Picked off, one by one, they scramble to save not only the child but themselves.
The film sets this all up and kicks up a swift pace early on, and while I was worried that the quality of the film would decline once they left the mountain (pun somewhat intended) I was pleasantly surprised, stakes were raised higher as the kidnappers moved closer and closer to regaining their charge. Visually this movie is the tops, the mountain shots and scenes in the gorge are powerful, gripping and intimidating, while a street parade in the city uses fire and crowd scenes to induce a kind of claustrophobia in the audience after the first half of the film includes so much open space. But tight spots are just as hard to hide in as giant forests, our protagonists unfortunately find out.
On the other side, we have a group of negotiators/counter kidnappers headed to the city to hand over the ransom and assess the situation. With three interested parties, the mission is certain to get a bit messy. Director Julian Gilbey has a real crowd-pleaser with this film, my lack of nails after the screening can prove it.