Review of A Lonely Place to Die (2011) by Stoo B — 22 Sep 2011

Gripping thriller set in the Scottish Highlands. A group of climbers rescue an entombed young girl from kidnappers and then have to battle for their survival.

Melissa George leads, which as far as I'm concerned, can only be a good thing and she certainly doesn't disappoint here. Unfortunately, all of the characters are pretty one-dimensional with no back stories or any obvious connection between any of them. Only one of them gets to show any kind of development at all, moving from irritating whinger to almost-likeable hero. While that in itself is fairly predictable, you don't even get a hint of that with any of the rest of the cast. The trouble with sacrificing character details for action is it then makes it difficult to really care who survives. Fortunately though, (and refreshingly) most of the deaths that occur aren't telegraphed like your average Hollywood movie and more than once you're taken quite by surprise.

The action takes place in some beautiful locations and the cinematography is great. The village scenes towards the end take on heavy overtones of The Wickerman - hopefully meant as a tribute rather than a lazy copy - but this doesn't really fit in with the otherwise remote location. The pace of the movie starts to suffer here too as It loses most of the ground gained in the second act and the conclusion seems quite rushed with the violence moving from thrilling and menacing to gratuitous and unrealistic.

Overall though it's still a solid enough thriller, shot beautifully, with enough pace & tension to maybe help you forgive the weak finale.