20140321: Thriller Review--High Lane

High Lane (Vertige)

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. French live action feature length film, 2009, NR, 84 minutes, thriller, action.  Spoken language is French.
2. IMDB: 5.7/10.0 from 4,360 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 60% on the meter; 33% liked it from 850 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.3/5.0 from 247,355 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Abel Ferry.
6. Starring: Fanny Valette as Chloe, Nicolas Giraud as Fred, Johan Libereau as Luc, Raphael Lenglet as Guillaume, Maud Wyler as Karine, Justin Blanckaert as Anton.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Skilled climber Fred and girlfriend Karine, with friends Chloe, Guillaume, and Luc take a hike in the mountains.  IMDb claims the film was shot in the French Alps; the scenery is impressive.  However, the titles and dialogs say that that they are in Croatia, 'leaving civilization.'  That was a bad sign.


2. Early on, their path is marked as blocked.  They decide to rock-climb above the blockage and proceed on the chosen path down line of the blockage.  That looks rather iffy to me; the terrain takes some serious rock climbing skills.  Further, Luc has vertigo, and should have turned back to wait in the vehicle.  Also, someone is following them.


3. After a sturdy-looking suspension bridge breaks, nearly killing Karine, they must press on to a pass.  After that, at a critical turn, the climber's cable is no longer anchored.  The leader, Fred, goes high, again attempting to go above and around the problem.  He succeeds, but Luc and Guillaume are left dangling when more pitons pull out.  Fred gets caught in an animal trap.  Karine and Chloe rescue the dangling Guillaume and Luc via a rope.


4. While waiting in the trap, Fred gets a clue that perhaps he is not alone.  The other four finally head for Fred, but he has been dragged off.  Apparently these folks have never heard of tracking a blood trail while it's still light out.  Chloe falls into a pit trap.  Karine goes in after her, and extricates her from a spike.  The men pull them out.  Darkness falls; they keep looking for Fred in the dark as the rain starts.  Whoever has been hunting them shoots Karine through the thorax with a barbed arrow, and cuts the rope joining her to Chloe.


5. Things get worse for the group.  Will any of them get out alive?


3. Conclusions
1. On Netflix, an English dub was used.  I would have preferred the French with subtitles.
2. One line summary: Started out nicely enough, but its finish looked completely copied.
3. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 8/10 Loved the 2.35 aspect ratio.  The mountains and the woods were beautiful, and the camera work was professional.  There was a little camera shake now and then that did not improve the viewing experience.


2. Sound: 7/10 The dubs really were not good.  The incidental music and sound were hit and miss: some right on target, some seemingly pointless.


3. Acting: 7/10 Perhaps not Academy Award performances, but rather good.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 This film starts nicely enough, but borrows much too heavily from the Wrong Turn series.  Whatever demons Chloe seemed to need to exorcise early on are not revealed completely, but they killed her in the end.  The portrayal of a love triangle was weak.