Beyond The Reach is a film directed by Jean-Baptiste Léonetti who has directed a few French films such as Carré blanc (2011). Beyond The Reach stars Michael Douglas as Madec and Jeremy Irvine as Ben. In Beyond The Reach we follow the story of a super rich guy (Madec) who wants to go hunting for some Bighorn. Due to being super rich he’s able to get a permit to hunt these animals and enlists Ben, who helps him track the animals down.
Beyond The Reach Trailer
Beyond The Reach Review
Beyond The Reach is one of those films that you’d probably only watch once and you wouldn’t really need to watch it again. The plot of the film is very linear and follows an easy to understand path. While there were a few big plot twists in the film, they don’t really help to add to the drama all that much.
Characters are somewhat interesting in Beyond The Reach and Madec in particular seems to be a unique sort of madman. The idea of not wanting to kill poor Ben, but instead, follow him around the desert and wait for Ben to die from the heat, it’s a bit crazy really. What’s strange is that Madec seems to gain pleasure out the situation and appears to enjoy watching another person suffer in the desert. Ben on the other hand just seems to want to get out of there as soon as possible so that he can get back to his girlfriend, Ben’s okay, but not as interesting a character as Madec.
The visuals are quite nice in Beyond The Reach and the director did well to capture the desert environment and its dangers for this film. I did think though that the film did not seem to be as tense as it could have been, sure we have Madec following Ben around the desert, but we didn’t get much else other than that and it needed just a bit more in my view to keep things interesting. Beyond The Reach also reminded me a bit of the Wolf Creek films, which are a different genre entirely, but they are a far more tense experience than watching Beyond The Reach. In my view it needed some more tension to make you want Ben to survive this ordeal.
The acting is well done, with Michael Douglas being the best one of the lot, as he also has the more interesting character to play. I didn’t really feel that Jeremy Irvine did all that much with his role other than the physical nature of the performance. All of the rest of the actors are completely forgettable though and it’s a bit of a shame, but really the main focus of the film is on Ben and Madec, so they don’t really matter anyway.
Overall Beyond The Reach isn’t really that bad of a film to rent. I didn’t mind watching everything play out in the desert between Ben and Madec. But that’s all there is to it really, while Michael Douglas does perform well in his role and his character is quite interesting, it doesn’t help the film enough in order to make it great. It’s not bad if you have some time to waste and are looking around for something to rent, it’s just not the best film you’ll see this year though.
