The title and trailer for this film make it sound like a bog-standard independent horror: a group of friends in the mountains find something unusual and get involved in a deadly chase. I thought I had seen it all before.
How wrong I was.
The films set-up is very simple: a group of climbers, led by the Scottish expert Rob (Alec Newman) and including young American woman Alison (Melissa George), find a young Serbian girl buried in the ground as they are climbing in the Highlands. It soon becomes clear that the girl has been put there by two ruthless criminals (the ever-sinister Sean Harris and Stephen McCole). What follows in a taut, thrilling chase to the nearest village, as the criminals try to get the girl back.
The plot is, as I have said already, pretty standard. So what makes the film special?
Primarily, it is the climbing scenes, which are impeccable. I am no climber but to me they seemed realistic and importantly, they were very scary. Also, the falls that characters had were breathtakingly real-looking and were true heart-in-your-mouth moments.
Another strength of the film is its setting. The Highlands of Scotland look amazing in this film, and as a Scot, I was happy that they looked so stunning. The isolation of the place also adds to suspense and genuine worry for the main characters.
The acting is spot-on most of the time. Sean Harris should be singled out for a fantastic performance as the evil Mr Kidd, whose accuracy in the kill still strikes a chill down my spine. What was so perfect about the kills were their realism: every time they killed someone we saw the necessary blood, the necessary gore to threaten you and make you think, 'these guys mean business'. A key to good thrillers is that when a gun is fired, there must be consequences. I look to a completely different type of film - Captain America - and see bad guys shooting hundreds of times at the protagonist and missing every time. In A Lonely Place to Die, the villains shoot to kill - and they're very good at that. Lets face it, if a group of climbers were being shot at from nearby by good snipers, there would be a lot of casualties - and there are, so we keep believing in the film.
The heroes are great as well, with their dialogue realistic and witty enough to make use care about them, and make us believe in them as real people. An overall strength of the film is this realism, which is 100% necessary for a good thriller. At one point I thought the film was going to morph into a Jack Bauer '24' esque finale, but instead it keeps that realistic edge, and keeps an interesting theme of chance running until the final scene.
The film drags on a tiny bit, with an small, unnecessary twist at the end, but overall a really well-made thriller that should send the director/writer team of Julian and Will Gilbey to Hollywood.
