Bullet Points: A Lonely Place to Die
Foreign Film Friday continues for us here at Bulletproof Action as we head across the Atlantic and check out a film released way back in 2011. We try our best to stay on our toes and bring you the best in all of foreign action cinema so sit back and check out my thoughts on A Lonely Place to Die.
The Gist: Five mountain climbers find themselves in a life and death situation when they come across a small girl buried deep in the Scottish Highlands. They must make their way down the mountain to safety before the kidnappers can recover their lost loot.
The Cast: Melissa George does most of the heavy lifting as Alison. She is joined by former Eragon star Ed Speleers and fellow British actors Alec Newman, Kate Magowan, and Garry Sweeney as the five climbers. George goes all Cliffhanger on the kidnappers and spends most of the film being the tough one since a few of her friends were real pussies. The little girl does a good job of not speaking English and causing the climbers to be really confused but she does little else but run around screaming, which is probably would most 12 year olds would do in that situation.
I’ve done a little climbing in my day but I don’t remember anyone shooting at me while I did it.
The Villain: The two bad guys, who I don’t remember being named, are played by veteran actors Sean Harris and Stephen McCole. Their one true purpose is to make life a living hell for our climbing friends but as the film moves along we find out that they are just a couple of criminals trying to make a buck by kidnapping the children of rich people. This clearly isn’t the first child they’ve kidnapped but once the shit hits the fan they don’t react like a couple of vets but instead they show the same sort of cowardice as the people they’re chasing. I have to say that the final ten minutes or so of the film is quite enjoyable as we finally do get to see these two jackasses get what is coming to them.
This guy is a real dick!
The Action: Early on in the film before the plot thickens our climbers find themselves in a precarious position and I couldn’t help but scream at the screen in my best British accent, “Calm down you f*cking twat!” It took me a while to recognize the kid from Eragon but I think he was tougher when he was riding around a dragon and the rest of their crew offered little resistance to the bad guys save for Melissa George. I mean, she did live through the vampire invasion of 30 Days of Night so this was probably nothing for her. I didn’t like the sudden inclusion of the ransom storyline into the movie. It felt like it came out of nowhere and it really killed the pace. Either way, it was a quickly paced and enjoyable film.
Much of the action takes place up on the mountain and there’s nothing scarier than falling to your death from a mountain.
Take it Home:
- Favorite Quotes: “We’re English, we leave friendly fire to the Yanks.”
- Father of dragons: Eragon guy could have really used his flying pal in this one.
- Climbing: Writers Julian Gilbey and Will Gilbey became pretty good climbers prior to the making of the film.
Rating: 3.5/5
