by Victor Pryor
It would have been nice if an overabundance of ambition was the hook one could use to explain exactly why Beyond The Reach doesn’t work. You know, “Beyond The Reach Exceeds It’s Grasp,” or some such Shalit-ism. But it’s not an overabundance of ambition that’s the problem here; it’s an underabundance of logic.
When they work, there are few genres more rewarding than that of the cat and mouse thriller. There’s a special sort of charge that comes from two well-matched opponents trying to outwit and outplay one another. And since we’ve already pretty much established that Beyond The Reach manages to fuck that up, there’s little left to do but proceed with the autopsy.
Granted, the premise is solid. Based on the 1972 novel Deathwatch by Robb White, Reach tells the simple story of Ben (Jeremy Irvine), a guide who chaperones obnoxious one percenter Madec (Michael Douglas) to the Mojave to hunt big horn sheep. When Madec accidentally kills an innocent hermit, Ben refuses to go along with the cover-up, and for expediency’s sake, Madec just decides to force Ben to strip down to his underwear at gunpoint and watch from the comfort of his tricked out SUV as the desert sun boils him to death. But Ben is more resourceful than he seems, and it becomes a whole thing.
A perfectly reasonable setup, yes? But the cat and mouse thriller thrives on two very important aspects: one is the moves and countermoves that make up the game, and two is that the opponents complement each other in emotionally satisfying ways for the viewer.
Rookie mistake there, fellas: never make the bad guy more fun to watch than the hero.
When it comes right down to it, Ben just isn’t that cool. He’s bland as toast, he mumbles all his lines, and overshoots “salt of the Earth” to come off as of smug and superior, which is rarely a good look for the protagonist.
It’s not really Jeremy Irvine’s fault, here: he gives a fairly impressive physical performance, but he’s saddled with a temp track of a character and pitted against an enemy that’s roughly a hundred times more charismatic and watchable.
As played by rich asshole laureate Douglas, Madec is a prime cut of cinematic ham. He’s so much fun in his boorish, pampered malevolence that Ben never really stands a chance.
Which brings us to the second part of the recipe, the cat and mouse aspect. Here, too, the movie fails, since most of Ben’s “countermoves” really boil down to dumb luck. After one pretty clever escape involving telephone poles, nearly every success Ben has comes from happening to stumble upon a hole in the ground leading to a hidden outpost with a magical map that shows him secret, buried resources.
It’s cheat code plotting at its laziest.
Of course, the possibility exists this is a failure of adaptation: it’s easy to imagine that some of the twists and turns here might work better on the page, where a stripped down prose style and an interior look at the characters thought process could cover up some of the more implausible moments. But when literalized in the form of a film, clever prose has a habit of getting lost in translation, and there’s just too much here that doesn’t really stand up to even a cursory examination.
There are HUGE holes here, but let’s go with the big one, shall we?
Okay, let’s be kind and assume that Madec’s five hundred thousand dollar Mercedes Benz with a built-in toaster oven, record player, and cappuccino machine gets great mileage and that his hours long use of flood lights and assorted gadgets doesn’t drain the battery as he chases Ben around all day and night sipping martinis and listening to classical music.
Assuming all that doesn’t negate the fact that the easiest thing to do here is simply DRIVE THE FUCK OFF.
According to Madec, they’re about fifty miles from the highway. With no shirt, no shoes, and no sunblock, Ben has very little chance of making it back to town alive. And even if he does, it would have been more than enough time for Madec to get out of the tiny, nothing town, outside of which no one will care about the death of a desert hermit.
The lengths he goes to in order to make Ben complicit and then tries to murder-by-solar-proxy him are beyond ridiculous. And to top it off the whole thing culminates in one of the most idiotic endings I’ve seen in years. Seriously, it’s an ending so dumb, it feels like a reshoot.
But, since there’s no joy in drawing knives on a well-intentioned failure, let’s play devil’s advocate here: its slim run time, general stripped down nature, and the gleeful scenery chewing of Michael Douglas mean it’s never boring. Director Jean-Baptiste Leonetii makes the movie look very, very good. The New Mexico landscapes are both beautiful and menacing, and he manages to use a variety of camera tricks to convey the sheer, overwhelming heat of the place.
(Take note, JJ Abrams: this is a proper use of lens flares.)
Plus, Ronny Cox shows up for five minutes, which is always appreciated. And eventually sticks of dynamite come into play.
So that’s fun.
For all my (well-founded) complaints about the film, in the end it goes down pretty smooth. It’s not a bad watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
Well, it’s a bad watch, but it’s not unwatchable.
Take what you can get, guys…
SPECIAL FEATURES: Extras include the de rigeur trailer, Behind-The-Scenes featurette, and audio commentary with Douglas, Lionetti, and producer Robert Mitas. But best of all is the extra that amounts to a ten minute promo for the Mercedes Benz G63 6X6 AMG, a majestic beast of an SUV that costs half a million Euros and isn’t even available in America.
Shine on, you crazy diamond…