Poursuite mortelle

Having seen the more popular and might I say average to poor movies at the present time like Inbetweeners, Cowboys & Aliens & Final Destination 5 I wasn't planning to go to the cinema anytime soon. I just happened to catch a very short advert for ALPTD on the TV and checked it out on IMDb. Having a good review score we decided to go see it. To my surprise only one out of three cinemas was showing this movie and on arrival noticed the lack of people in the theatre (Three couples including us). I started to think that we had made a wrong choice. How wrong I was. The sheer scale of the opening scene was breath taking and really drew us in ready for the rest of the film. The pace of the film was perfect and the element of surprise was always there. There were 1 or 2 minor continuity errors but these were cleared up within the next few minutes. The level of violence was just right for a film like this not being glamorised or pornographied. I have to point out also that the child abuse issue is handled very well and the bar is set at what may be considered to be a 'comfortable movie level' (if there is such a thing), it could have been a lot worse but the director clearly has morals and making it quite clear it is not that type of film although it could have quite easily been. The excitement runs consistently throughout and the music/sound effects add to the overall excitement. Although a few of the actors are slightly wooden this is quickly and cleverly counter acted/covered up by the good ones and fast passed action. Good story, cleverly layed out in a gorgeous but deadly setting. Who could ask for more.

What's to me has been a pretty lackluster year for gripping thrillers A Lonely Place To Die is a refreshing and well executed one that has a solid payoff. The acting was solid from everyone though their accents kind of got in the way and was distracting and sometimes hard to understand but the highlight here was Melissa George in her best leading performance yet. The balance of themes like survival, kidnapping/ransom, stalk and kill, cat and mouse, revenge and action was stellar and close to perfection and though most of that is all too familiar by now it hasn't been as effective as this one in as long as I can remember. When it gets down and dirty it doesn't hold back and I'm not saying that it's overly graphic but just very intense and suspenseful which is most of the time way better than a splatterfest but just good old fashioned. The filming of the raw, haunting atmosphere was fantastic and has edge, it was breathtaking in intensity and beauty and the fact that it jumps to different locations and not stay at one the whole time added to the thrill in a roller-coaster ride of a chase and fight for safety in a lonely place where no one can here you scream, very harrowing stuff. Overall this is the best thriller of the year and deserved to be a wide theatrical release because to me it puts the wide released ones like Drive, Hanna and the Straw Dogs remake to shame, studios back this one up now so it can get a proper wide release that it should certainly earn. Recommended! 7.5 out of 10

A Lonely Place to Die is the fourth feature from British Director Julian Gilbey. His last film was the acclaimed Rise of the Footsoldier way back in 2007. This film marks a very different change of pace for the director and what he delivers here is a striped back bare bones Horror survival thriller. For the most part ALPTD works. Its 1hr and 40 min running time rattles along at a fairly lively pace. It's the films third act coupled with its confused tone that eventually drags it down.

Mellissa George plays one of a group of five friends that go climbing in the Scottish highlands. Early on they discover a small girl buried in a box underground. They decide to free the girl and go for help. Little do they realize that the Kidnappers are in hot pursuit! ALPTD opens with a nerve rattling climbing sequence, from here it builds pretty effortlessly with a number of nail biting senses has a game of cat and mouse is played out in the Scottish wilderness. Little is actually learned about the cast but the film moves at such a pace that this isn't really an issue. Deaths come almost from nowhere and this is one of the films strengths. The fact that is fair game on any of the cast members really adds to the suspense. Mellissa George is the only real stand out from the cast and she is excellent here making the most of here thinly conceived character. She is easily able to portray both venerable and tough and this up there with Triangle has her best performance. The cinematography is amazing with shots of the mountains and scenery really adding to the isolation of their surroundings. Some of the hand-held style camera work adopted during the chase sequences adds an extra bit of flare which really lifts them above the average.

It's a shame that the film was not able to maintain the tension and suspense throughout its whole running time. The third acts arrives has the setting shifts to a local town during a Wicker man style festival. The departure from the wilderness sees the pacing almost ground to a complete halt. The direction of the film also changes. Before this there the film had more of a horror feel to it. The change in setting and the introduction of several new characters moves the film very much into the ransom thriller area. This change in tone is to serve and makes the film feel almost like two separate films in one. The third acts slow down also exposes the problems with the script. Poorly written characters being chased through the woods in a horror film is one thing, being asked to care about poorly written characters during a hostage thriller is a different story altogether. Without anyone to care about a feeling of indifference takes over. Has it stands A Lonely Place to Die is a fairly entertaining if standard film that is worth a watch. There are elements there that could have made it a lot more memorable.

Great locations and nice production with some lovely set pieces. I enjoyed this... solid film making deffo give it a while.

A group of mountain climbers enjoy a trip to the Highlands of Scotland . During a trek they find a young child buried alive in a chamber . The child who is from Eastern Europe and is obvious she's been kidnapped . The group quickly come to realise that the kidnappers are nearby and will do anything to get the child back and eliminate any witnesses to their crime

Julian Gilbey had previously directed RISE OF THE FOOT SOLDIER which I rated as a very underrated movie . SOLDIER was a tough violent thriller and Gilbey showed shades of being perhaps a future British version of Scorsese . What stopped the movie from being a mini-masterpiece is that like so many British films that just fall short of greatness ( Hello Danny Boyle ) it's a film of two halves . The first half charting the rise of Carlton Leach football hooligan to feared gangster then it effectively rights him out of the narrative and focuses on his associates who later became victims of a high profile mass murder . When this movie was released one wondered if Gilbey could make a more sustained focused film ? I don't think he has

A LONELY PLACE TO DIE is a British answer to the backwoods brutality sub-genre horror movie with a rather obvious nod to John Carpenter . According to the trivia section on this page Gilbey took up rock climbing while making the film and it shows - perhaps too obviously as the first third of the movie has perhaps a few too many self congratulatory scenes featuring characters hanging off a ledge and it's not until about 35 minutes in that the film plot proper starts to take off . Previous to this we have to put up with long dialogue heavy scenes that don't add anything to the storyline

Sean Harris plays the main villain and I've always thought of him as being one of Britain's most criminally underrated actors . He's great at playing violent psychos and as can be expected here he's not playing a romantic lead . Oh to have a scene where he has the heroine held at knifepoint growling " Ah'm going to carve you up b*tch " but this never happens because plotting takes precedence over casting and unfortunately the longer the film goes on the plot becomes more contrived and unlikely with people being in the right ( Or wrong place depending on how you look at it ) place and people reacting in ways that seem unlikely

A LONELY PLACE TO DIE is a relatively diverting thriller . It's certainly not the most credible one you'll see but there again who said movies had to be credible ? That said it is fairly uneven and you're able to recognise the faults that should have been corrected at draft screenplay level . As it stands it's a film that could have been better