A Lonely Place to Die Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

A Lonely Place to Die Blu-ray Movie Review

Five climbers quite literally between a rock and a hard place.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater March 22, 2012

I'm going to stay as far from major spoilers as possible, but my advice at the outset here is this--if you're a confirmed fan of taut, man versus man versus nature thrillers, go ahead and check out A Lonely Place to Die. It's worth it. Read no further. Seek out no other reviews. Go in blind. This is a film that works best that way. It constantly evolves, introducing unexpected twists and new characters, and the less you know about where it goes beforehand, the better. Prior to watching it, my own knowledge of the film was limited to what I could gather from the short trailer, which doesn't give away much, and I think my ignorance about the plot and story definitely contributed to the overall sense of suspense. There were at least three big moments where I let out an audible woah, I didn't see that coming. So, yeah, if you're predisposed to liking the outdoor-adventure- gone-wrong genre, stop here and skip on down to the video/audio/supplementary materials section.

If you're still with me, I'm going to assume you want to know at least a bit more about A Lonely Place to Die--which was directed by British filmmaker Julian Gilbey, who co-wrote the script with his brother, Will--and that you're not going to go ape on me if I reveal a few plot points that have to be mentioned if I'm going to write anything longer than a one-paragraph capsule review. We cool? Tread lightly...

You take the low road and I'll take the high road...

The film opens with a near-deadly, vertigo-inducing accident on a steep cliff-face, introducing us to the dangers of the gorgeous Scottish Highlands, where five friends--experienced mountaineers Alison (Melissa George) and Rob (Alec Newman), climbing newbie Ed (Ed Speelers), and married couple Jenny (Kate Magowan) and Alex (Garry Sweeney)--have rented a cabin and plan on spending the weekend summiting nearby peaks. The hikers' personalities and interpersonal relationships are only cursorily sketched, but this ultimately doesn't matter much; once it gets going, A Lonely Place is an almost non-stop action/thriller that doesn't have much time or use for drawn-out character development. The acting is consistently solid, though, which gives the script some leeway to be lean.

We get to the core dilemma quickly. Stopping in the woods for lunch, the friends hear a strange garbled human voice coming from somewhere nearby, and they track the sound to a pipe--more specifically, a breathing tube--jutting out of freshly overturned soil. Underneath, inside a plywood box, they find Anna, a terrified, malnourished and dehydrated Croatian child who's clearly been there in the dark for several days. Obviously, the hikers' first collective thought is to get the girl the hell out of there, but their second is more harrowing. Someone, and probably someone dangerous, is inevitably going to come looking the kid, and that puts all of them at risk.

There are two options to get to the nearest town, 1.) a long, meandering 30-mile path along a ravine, and 2.) a 500 ft cliff that, if descended safely, will put them only a few short miles to safety. They decide to split up; Ed, Jenny, and Alex will take the girl on the trail, while Alison and Rob plan to brave the steep descent--with too little rope--and run ahead to get help. Needless to say, the next few hours don't go smoothly for either group. The girl's kidnappers--who have set up a very lucrative ransom scheme--do indeed come looking for her, and this sets off a high-energy, Deliverance-like chase through the rugged Scottish landscape. There are severed ropes and distressingly realistic-looking falls from great heights, tumbles in white water rapids and breakneck sprints through the forest.

It's harrowing, legitimately thrilling stuff, and once it starts it rarely relents. What's crazy about the film, though--and this happens a few times--is that just when you think you've got a handle on where it's taking you, the script introduces some rather drastic changes. Not to give too much away, but the two-way chase gradually becomes a three-way when the stolen girl's father--who also happens to be a fugitive war criminal--sends a team of mercenaries to deal with the kidnappers. The exceptionally violent final act of the film finds all three groups descending into a rustic village, where--by a rather unlikely coincidence--a depraved May Day celebration is being held, complete with topless women dressed as demons, dudes in ogre costumes, and flame jugglers. Yes, and fireworks, which conveniently mask the sound of gunshots.

Yeah, I didn't see that one coming either. Admittedly, the last act goes more than a hair over the top in a Wicker Man-meets-Straw Dogs kind of way. Where it starts with a tense and peculiar sparseness, A Lonely Place gradually falls into the trappings of more conventional genre movies. Not that this doesn't have its particular charms. I mean, I wouldn't have expected a story that starts with a white-knuckle climb up a mountain to end with a cat-and-mouse chase through a folksy bacchanal, but damn if I didn't get goosebumps when one of the shotgun- toting baddies dons a pig mask and starts stalking the remaining survivors. I'll say no more.

You certainly don't have to look this deeply into it, but the underlying metaphor of the film is the question of how much life, nobility, compassion, and altruism are worth. The script draws pointed attention to the businesslike way the ransom transaction is handled, and there's an emphasis on how much the characters have to sacrifice--to the extent of giving up their own lives--to save a girl they don't even know. This gives the film a what would you do? resonance that elevates the story a good couple hundred feet above your usual thriller/horror fare.

A Lonely Place to Die Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

I'm at the point now where I can spot movies shot with the Red One camera by sight, and I've gotta say, I like what I see. A Lonely Place to Die features a digital-to-digital 1080p/AVC-encoded Blu-ray transfer that more than does justice to the film's often gorgeous cinematography. Barring a few slightly soft shots, the image here is exceptionally sharp. The detail in the actors' faces, the weaving of their clothing, the textures of trees and rocks and foliage and moss--it all looks fantastic. And the color grading has no problems keeping up. Greens are lush. Red and turquoise jackets are vivid. Skies are a soft blue, highlights are creamy, and skintones are warm and consistent. Black levels can seem a bit raised at times--into deep grayish territory--but contrast on the whole is finely tuned. It's clear that a few shots were filmed with a portable, hands-free GoPro camera or something similar, and these are noticeably less clear, but not much can be done about that. And while I did spot one or two instance of slight banding, I didn't really see any other noticeable compression issues. Even in darker scenes the picture is relatively noise-free.

A Lonely Place to Die Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Lonely Place to Die clambers onto Blu-ray with two audio options, a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track and an uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 stereo mix. Whichever you choose, you're in good hands, but if you've got a multi-channel audio system, you'll definitely want to stick with the former. This is a relatively low-budget movie, but the sound design is actually quite good, making great use of the full soundfield for an engaging and sometimes blood-pumping audio experience. You'll hear outdoor ambience in just about every scene--wind through the trees, bird calls, the rush of water, quiet thunder, etc.--and the track boasts plenty of potent directional effects as well, from gunshots that rip between channels to shattering glass and cracking branches. When the action really ramps up, the subwoofer kicks in with throbbing LFE output, using the bass to underscore the tension. The film's easily excitable orchestral score is pretty typical action movie stuff, but it sounds strong, with a rich low-end and clear highs. Dialogue throughout is cleanly recorded, nicely balanced in the mix, and easy to understand. The disc also includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles, which appear in bright yellow lettering.

A Lonely Place to Die Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

I would've loved an audio commentary or behind-the-scenes piece revealing how some of the mountain climbing scenes were shot, but unfortunately the only bonus feature on the disc is the film's trailer (1080p, 1:56).

A Lonely Place to Die Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I didn't know what to expect when I started A Lonely Place to Die, but what I got was a breakneck backwoods thriller with more twists than a Scottish braid. If you're into movies that pit people simultaneously against nature and one another, it's certainly worth at least a rental. There are no real bonus features on the disc--aside from a trailer--but the Blu-ray presentation is great, with a crisp, colorful image and an energetic lossless audio track.