[No, I haven't just been released from prison, or escaped a soul crushingly loveless marriage... but I have found a number of long forgotten draft busts that deserve a better home than my freemail inbox. I'm pretty sure this bust was written at the time of the movie's cinema release, though it's bound to be available on other media, by now.]
A Lonely Place to Die (2011) is a British action-thriller film directed by Julian Gilbey, starring Sean Harris, Melissa George, Karel Roden, Eamonn Walker and Ed Speleers.
In the end self-confessed child murderer Sean Harris meets a sticky end at the hands of an infamous Balkan war criminal, turned businessman, father of a girl Harris has kidnapped for ransom, but who is accidentally discovered and freed from a secret underground chamber dug into a remote Scottish hillside and lead to safety by ambitious young climber Melissa George.
While trekking through woods on a Highland mountaineering trip, George and her latest climbing partner Ed Speleers, together with their mountaineering guide and a pair of thirty-something parents taking a break from family life, are horrified to discover a young girl imprisoned in a hidden underground chamber.
Only the thirty-something mother is able to coax the terrified girl, who is hungry, dehydrated and unable to speak english, from her prison.
Realising that they must get the girl to the authorities as soon as possible, their guide decides that the best course of action is for the group to split up. While the couple and Speleers lead the young girl down the mountain, the guide and George, the best climber of the group, will take the shortest route, involving an abseil down a notoriously dangerous cliff face, to the nearest town where they can arrange for a mountain rescue team to meet the others.
Without a sufficiently long rope, the pair are forced to make the decent in two stages. However, perched precariously on a ledge halfway down the cliff face, George is horrified to see their guide plummet past her to his death on the rocks below, taking their only rope with him.
Forced to attempt to free-climb her way down, George is knocked off the treacherous rock face by one of several rocks that have started falling from above. Very luckily, not only is her potentially lethal fall broken by several tree branches, but she lands in the water of a river running at the foot of the cliff.
Hauling herself out of the water, beside where the guide's body has landed, George passes out momentarily and experiences a frightening vision of waking up trapped inside the young girls underground prison. When she does eventually regains consciousness she discovers that their rope had been cut deliberately. Looking up she catches a fleeting glimpse of someone at the top of the cliffs.
Realising the danger that they are all now in, she heads off downriver at speed, managing to catch up with Speleers and the others who have stopped on the far riverbank to take on water.
George's vain shouted attempts over the noise of the river's rapids to warn the other of the situation are suddenly interrupted when the 30-something mother topples into the fast running water, dragging the young girl in behind her, having been shot in the head by Harris and his accomplice using high-power hunting rifles, only just stolen from a pair of illegal deer hunters they have jumped and murdered.
Trying to keep up, as the body of his wife and the young girl are swept downstream, the husband, George and Speleers all have to dodge bullets, until one near miss unbalances George, sending her into the water from which she eventually manages to drag herself and the girl.
Now all on the same side of the river, the group somehow manage to keep one step ahead of their pursuers, but not without Speleers seriously injuring his leg in a fall, which prompts him to start questioning the wisdom of their decision to rescue the girl in the first place, a suggestion that appals George.
Realising that Speleers injury threatens their escape, and reasoning that their pursuers are only interested in the money that the girl represents, the bereaved husband decides to act as a decoy, making off in the opposite direction carrying a bundle dressed in the girl's clothes.
The ploy works because in the time it takes Harris and his accomplice to chase down and callously murder the decoy, George, Speleers and the girl manage to abseil down a second rock face and reach the main road that will take them into the nearest town.
Despite the loss of their hostage, Harris decides to try to bluff his way though the ransom exchange that is scheduled to take place in a local bar that evening while the town is full of tourist visitors to a fire and fireworks festival.
Unfortunately for Harris, the man posing as the child's father, Karel Roden, her father's right-hand man, has been strictly briefed by Eamonn Walker, one of two armed private security specialists escorting him to the drop, not to, under any circumstances, hand over the ransom without first seeing the girl.
The street festival celebrations are in full swing by the time George, Speleers and the girl show up at the local police station to report the discovery of the girl and the murders of their companions. But when the lone officer at the station seems unable to summon help from a neighbouring force nor contact his assistant who is out in their patrol car, and has, in fact, already had is throat slit, paranoia overtakes Speleers who persuades George that waiting for help to arrive is a mistake.
Unsurprisingly, the police officer will not allow George and Speleers to leave with the girl. But, before he can stop them, he is gunned down by Harris's accomplice shooting from a rooftop across the street, who then proceeds to go on a shooting spree pursuing them through the streets.
Managing to down Speleers, the accomplice draws the attention of the second security specialist there to cover the exchange, who recognising the girl and despite being mortally wounded himself, still manages to alert Eamonn and Roden to the bluff that Harris is trying to pull off.
Realising that he has been rumbled, Harris makes a grab for the money, and although being injured in the ensuing struggle manages to make off with it. He doesn't get far, though, as a tracking device attached to the money leads Eamonn directly to him.
Meanwhile Harris's shotgun wielding accomplice, now sporting a boar's head mask snatched from one of the fire festival street performers, follows George and the girl into the home of a villager who has offered them shelter and who the accomplice shot-blasts in the stomach before setting fire to the place.
Pursuing the pair upstairs into a bedroom, he struggles with George, but is stunned by a bash over the head from the girl, and pushed through a window, falling to his death.
Trapped by the flames rising from below, George manages to throw the girl to safety, but has herself to be rescued by the fire-brigade after almost succumbing to the smoke.
Seeing George and his employer's daughter both being safely driven away in an ambulance, Roden and Eamonn drive deeply into the forest where they deliver the severely beaten Harris into the hands of the girl's father, who demands his henchmen strip and bind Harris, before asking for his "tools" to be made ready.
Without question the stars of Gilbey's action movie are the villains; callously psychotic kidnapper, Harris, and his menacingly sadistic accomplice, Stephen McCole, who manage to raise the threat level to fever pitch whenever they are on screen. That the movie fails to maintain this level of tension is chiefly the result of a script that contains far too much spoken exposition which sounds rather more like the screenwriter trying to explain the plot to himself, than the characters figuring out what's going on for themselves.
Having said that there is much good use of misdirection aimed at wrong footing the audience, who are repeatedly required to reassess the situation. Unfortunately, the film-makers also pull a couple of unforgivably corny "gotcha!" tricks that only devalue the unease that the uncertainty generates. All in all, not a bad movie that includes all the elements required of a good survival thriller. They just weren't executed well enough to make it a really great one. My advice, employ a better script editor.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Lonely_Place_to_Die
