This new British thriller, directed by Julian Gilbey (Rise of the Foot Soldier) suffers from an identity crisis. On the one hand, its plot — involving a group of mountain climbers in the Scottish highlands who stumble across a young girl being held captive underground — has the high-stakes tension of Touching the Void, but their subsequent rescue attempt and escape from the sniper-wielding captors is a bloodbath.
Moments in the film’s first half impress with some well-choreographed nailbiting scenes,
including Melissa George’s gutsy mountaineer attempts to negotiate a rock face as the hunters hurl boulders at her. But, by the last half an hour, Gilbey loses the courage of his convictions and opts instead for mindless violence which is a lot less interesting.
A Lonely Place to Die (2011), directed by Julian Gilbey, is distributed by Kaleidoscope, certificate 15.
