Michael Douglas stars in this week's blu-ray release, Beyond The Reach.
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| "You're the doctor that messed up my wife's face. Now you must die." |
Michael Douglas has played a number of memorable roles
during his forty-plus year film career.
His most famous role is arguable Gordon Gekko, the cold-hearted
corporate raider of Oliver Stone's Wall Street who turned "greed is
good" into one of the great catchphrases of the 1980's. Despite both the volume and diversity of
roles he's played since, Douglas will always be Gekko in the minds of movie
lovers everywhere. So it's not too
surprising to see how easily he slips into his role this week's new blu-ray
release, Beyond the Reach.
Beyond the Reach, based on the 1970's novel Deathwatch
by Robb White (and obviously inspired by the classic Richard Cornell short
story The Most Dangerous Game), is a twisted, occasionally tense, but
mostly slow-moving thriller. Beyond the Reach is a serviceable enough
classically designed thriller, with the kind of tension and twists one would
reasonably expect from such a film. The
two leads, who get the majority of the film to themselves, play off of each
other nicely and give great performances.
The film is also shot beautifully, with the desert appearing bright and
colorful while appropriately vast and foreboding.
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| "I could have sworn there was a taco stand here last week." |
The main problem with the film is pacing. Beyond the Reach clocks in at about an
hour and a half, but feels much longer.
Unfortunately this kills a bit of the tension that films like this
require to be truly effective. As a
result it becomes nearly as much of an endurance test as the one our hero
undergoes, minus the third degree sunburn.
A better paced film would have been much easier to follow and could have
been more satisfying at the end. This unfortunately cripples Beyond the
Reach.
Douglas's familiar and entertaining performance and the
overall construction of the story make Beyond the Reach a better than
average thriller. Unfortunately, the
film's slow pace holds it down to being only slightly better than average. Beyond the Reach is a good enough film
that is, unfortunately, not always quite good enough.
-Mike Stec