The movie opens with scenes of Kelly and Sophie, two American women who have ventured to Northern Italy to climb rocks. However, before they can get into their climbing gear, a group of men show up and the two women spend the evening around a campfire with them. Unfortunately, one of the men, Josh (Ben Lamb), has more on his mind than just telling ghost stories and enjoying the company of his female companions. After Kelly decides to head off to her cabin for a good night’s sleep, Josh decides to make a move on Sophie but this has tragic consequences. ..
Josh follows Sophie through the woods and tries to rape her. She escapes by clambering up the side of a nearby rockface but Josh and the rest of the men pursue her. Realising her friend might be in trouble, Kelly heads into the forest and arrives at the mountain just in time to see her friend get thrown off a ledge. She captures the horrifying moment with her video camera but makes a noise while filming. The other men hear her and start to give chase and this is the catalyst for the rest of the movie as Kelly free climbs up the mountain to escape her pursuers.
The movie is well-realised and has a good premise. However, the climbing scenes are not as well-realised as they could be and the location shooting does not add much to the film. The actress playing Kelly is also very good in her role, but it would have been nice if she had been better suited to the task of climbing a real rockface.
Howard J. Ford directed the film in a way that allowed for some stunning shots of the cliff-face in relation to the valley below. It’s likely that a lot of camera trickery was involved – actors weren’t paid to risk their lives by scaling too far up the mountain – but there are moments when we are given some stunning views of the scene. ..
The film starts off promisingly enough, with a strong performance from the lead actor and some good set pieces. However, the rest of the movie is a mess. The writing is poor, and the tension is never ratcheted up high enough to make it interesting. Instead, it feels like it’s constantly building and then falling apart. It’s not a bad movie by any means, but it’s not worth your time or money.
The dialogue in “The Fault in Our Stars” is poor and the actors cannot make much sense of the lines they are given. This makes the dialogue difficult to understand and makes it difficult to enjoy the movie.
The main issue with the book is that it is not well-characterised. The author gives us a good backstory for Ashworth, but we don’t really know her character well enough to form an opinion. The guys are only given a little bit of backstory, and it’s not very interesting or compelling.
Josh comes off as a two-dimensional cartoonish villain in the film. The other men appear to be much nicer than he is, but despite their dislike of his actions, they still go along with his orders and do his dirty work for him. It’s hard to understand why they are friends with him in the first place as they constantly make reference to the guilt they feel about their involvement with him in the past. ..
The cat and mouse game that the film is set up to play is a bit of a letdown. The actual climbing scenes are good, but the rest of the movie is just a mess. The characters are unappetizing and the dialogue is nonsensical. If you don’t want to waste your time, I suggest avoiding this movie.
