High Ground

Jake Wilcott (Charlie Weber) takes over from his father Ezra Wilcott (Jon Voight) as the Sheriff of a small Colorado town. They have a new prisoner (Henry Thomas) who refuses to identify himself. Cassie Becker (Katherine McNamara) is the local waitress. In the opening scene, the mystery man is a witness for the prosecution targeted for assassination. A hit team arrives, but he turns the table on them. Big bad Marcus is coming with another team.

It's an action crime B-movie. The story is standard fare. There is some bad writing. Mostly, the villain is too casually killing too many people. It is all unnecessary and unrealistic. It's like Marcus is intent on putting a flashing light over this town and his head for no reason. The cops are never going to stop after a massacre like this. If the movie wants a big battle, it needs to build up to it. The diner is too much.

One cannot help but feel pity for the actors. From beginning to end, one feels a persistent sense of embarrassment on their behalf. Of course, they must earn a living and find work. But one wonders just how dire their financial circumstances must have been to compel them to collaborate with such an appallingly inept director and writer.

The direction is astonishingly poor, even worse than the already weak writing. Must the assailants, by any measure, be portrayed with such staggering stupidity, their assault on the ranch so laughably uncoordinated and devoid of even the most basic strategic logic?

Here we have a principal antagonist in pursuit of a key witness, presumably someone who could implicate him in a series of capital offences, likely condemning him to life imprisonment. So far, so good. In the course of this pursuit, he indiscriminately kills nearly everyone he encounters, presumably to eliminate potential witnesses. Fair enough. But then he inexplicably spares the life of a woman to subject her to a fate "worse than death," as he puts it (his meaning being: now you have to live with the guilt of having seen all your friends die because of you). But of course, her survival now renders her a direct eyewitness to mass murder, capable of testifying and securing the villain's conviction, even if he would succeed in killing the original key witness he is chasing.

The sheer lack of narrative logic and intelligence on display is staggering. One is left to marvel: how does a script of such implausibility and incoherence even secure financing? Who, in their right mind, would fund such a spectacular heap of nonsense?

One can only hope that the actors emerge from this debacle with their reputations intact and are offered material more worthy of their abilities.

This is the type of movie you watch when you are bored and don't care if a film is well done or half-baked. High Ground is made with all the quality of a Hallmark or Lifetime movie which means it doesn't even seem like a real movie. I don't know which is worse, the acting or the plot. While Jon Voight is a good actor and he's OK in this, it's a shame that the star of classics like Midnight Cowboy and Deliverance has fallen to this. The actors who play the bad guys in this are actually better than the ones playing the good guys. The script is terrible and actions happen for seemingly no reason. Overall the plot doesn't make sense and there isn't a shred of anything realistic here. Many years ago good guys vs bad guy films were made as Film Noir B level movies that have since become classics. A movie like this is a one time watch because it's slightly entertaining in how poorly is is done and then it's completely forgotten.

This movie is horrible, the actors horrible, the script horrible, plot horrible, and Sharon Horrible. Jake is the worse example of sheriff I've ever come across. The only good thing about this movie is Katherine and the community camaraderie. My dog could have directed a better movie with a iPhone. Please I beg of you save the time I will never get back. I've never written a review before, but this movie is two packs of donkey butt. These people were literally using guns from the civil war. I would rather not say much more, but there's a character limit and I"m 30 words shy. Everyone involved in this project should be jailed immediately.

Don't listen to the naysayers. This is a really great movie! And getting to see Henry Thomas and John Voight act together was really special! James Oliver Wheatley plays the requisite evil man with aplomb opposite the hero Charlie Webber. A few places in the plot are predictable, but the acting is solid, the plot moves along at a good pace. It's a little bit of a thriller, a little bit of a mystery, and even a love story in the mix with the beautiful petite blonde actress, Katherine McNamara. John Voight is an American legend and it is great to see him continue to act and act well. Hope to see more of Henry Thomas in the future. Loved seeing that he still has his acting chops. This was an all-around great cast with a solid screenplay and a great plot. Director James Banford did a good job with the talent that he had to work with. Great flick!