[REVIEW] Beyond The Reach (2015)

Runtime: 91 Mins
Rated: R
What To Expect: A poor man’s No Country for Old Men, but still oddly watchable

Michael Douglas seems to appear in a ton of movies where he’s playing a smug millionaire.  The Game, Wall Street, Don’t Say A Word (I was rooting for manly man Sean Bean in that one)…  I don’t know what it is about that, but it seems to work, maybe certain shoes fit better than others.  Know what I mean?  Well, he’s doing it again in this movie.  And once again playing the bad guy.  It’s fortunate that it was Douglas playing the role in this movie, because there is effectively only a cast of two, and the other part of the duo, Jeremy Irvine, is kind of a bore.  So thanks to Douglas, and his most badass of vehicles, it’s just about watchable.

Douglas plays Madec,  an insurance tycoon who gets his kicks hunting various animals and big game.  He wants to head out into the wilderness in Arizona for a weekend getaway and hires Ben, played by Jeremy Irvine, a local tracker, to assist him with terrain navigation.  Ben’s girlfriend has left him for the big city and he does not want to be there.  Madec on the other hand is eager, so eager he kills the first thing moving, which happens to be a man.  However, he has a big corporate deal in the pipeline and manslaughter will certainly throw a spanner in the works for that type of thing.  So he posits that both men cover up the death, with Madec making it very worth while for Ben.  Of course, the boy scout refuses.  Guess where it goes from there.

I’ll tell you one thing, I wasn’t sure whether to give this a seven out of ten or not.  I mean, man, some ridiculous shit happens in this movie.  Multiple times, the protagonist could’ve wrapped things up by simply reaching for the antagonist and beating the shit out of him.  The story becomes ridiculous, increasingly.  And given the setting, it’s like a poor man’s No Country for Old Men.  It doesn’t help that Jeremy Irvine’s acting is wooden as fuck, the guy is up there in Mark Wahlberg territory, but thankfully not with a face you’d want to punch.

However I couldn’t help give this one a pass.  Y’see, Douglas, unlike many a washed up actor in these smaller types of movies, is really putting the hours in and acting. And having fun, which helps out with a movie with an atrocious script.  I was also happy that the tedious love-angst that appears in the opening largely is kept to the side and doesn’t intrude.  There is also vehicular pornography in this movie.  Madec is an asshole, but a likeable asshole. Not only does the gazzillionaire sympathize with the pissant tracker, he drives a Mercedes G63 6×6, which is possibly the last word in pickup trucks.  A beast, a beauty, and used extensively in the movie.  No real manly man can not be fascinated with a serious off road all terrain vehicle, and this one is something else, I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.  It has its own coffee maker for fuck’s sake!

This is a dumb movie.  But it’s not so bad, it almost cons people watching it into thinking they didn’t waste their time.