Le saut du diable

Just watched this on UK Channel 4, presented as two episodes of a series. I'm staggered to see it gets a rating here of 5.4 ! The action sequences are so exciting, and the stunts (climbing mountains, sliding down waterfalls, fighting bad guys.... all standard action movie stuff) are delivered in style, and look very believable

Maybe not up to standard of a cinema release? But it makes a great TV series.

This French wilderness set drama is centred on Paul Vilar. He is a former member of the French Special Forces who has planned a weekend hike with Sara, his seventeen year old daughter, to celebrate their birthdays. She is less keen but agrees to go. On the way they stop off at Paul's uncle's bar where they learn that the authorities suspect people smugglers of operating in the area. Inevitable they run into them; Sara witnesses one of them stabbing one of the migrants... the heavily armed smugglers are determined to leave no witnesses. Paul must use his military skills as he leads his daughter through a dangerous canyon.

'Meeting bad people in the wilderness' is effectively a genre in its own right. I thought this was a decent enough example even if it is pretty obvious that it is made for television and not just because it had been divided into two episodes here. While it is impressively tense much of the time the confrontations with the smugglers are quite tame. As the bad guys, armed with automatic rifles, repeatedly miss when our protagonists are in the open. It is the terrain that proves to be the greater threat... and it does look great with waterfalls and a narrow gorge. Overall I'd not call this a must see but it is decent enough if you enjoy the genre.

These comments are based on watching the film in French with English subtitles.

The film actually started out quite normal and not bad.

A few climbing scenes and a family dynamic. But I very quickly became totally unlikable about the girl, of course she's supposed to be a pubescent teenager, but I couldn't muster up any sympathy for her at all and I wasn't actually interested in whether something happened to her. Her only job was to call "Dad". In addition, the girl sometimes behaved so stupidly that I shouted from the couch: "Get out of there, is she stupid? Why is she doing that?"

I had more sympathy for the father; I thought he played his role as a climber authentically. So I really bought into him that he can climb. He carried out the dialogues with his daughter relatively well. Solid performance. The mother also played okay, but also played authentically.

Unfortunately, my bit of praise stops with the "malefactors" of the story. It bothered me that everything someone said to themselves at a moment like that had to be said or that everything always had to be described in detail. For example: "We're leaving here now down and then look for them at the bottom".

It's always better: show don't talk. The main villain also overacted and was just way too serious and evil for this type of film.

There were quite a few logical holes in the film, e.g. B. a person jumps down and comes up on the water much too late. That got a few laughs from time to time. But I don't think it was meant to be laughed at.

Towards the end the film becomes a bit more exciting, but unfortunately that's over after just 15 minutes.

However, the film impresses with its short but beautiful landscape shots.

To be honest, the ending is pretty banal, problems are solved by magic and everything is peace and joy.

With my fear of heights, I had severe doubts about watching this film.. Still, what could be nicer as a birthday treat for a teenage girl then spending a weekend with Dad - in a cave in the mountains hiding from a gang of armed thugs?

The cave was obviously a bit of a downer for a teenager with a mobile phone, so she climbs on top of a rocky outcrop for a signal so that she can send a video of the thugs to her friend, and is obviously spotted by the thugs. A somewhat dumbfounded parent is left to ask, "You gotta signal?? Why didn't you call the police??) I stopped watching at this point (the end of Episode1), thinking that if I want to escape I should probably ditch the kid.

At least, the expert, dangerous climbing at the start didn't make me dizzy or sick - the best part for me.

No pun intended - actually sometimes it is best not to take your daughter with you. Better for all involved - well sort of. Of course we would not have this movie if ... wrong place, wrong time kind of thing happened. You could also swap or rather argue right instead of wrong - but that is a different story.

Since Vertical Limit in the 90s I am waiting for another movie to be on the same level of insanity of sorts. This is not it - but for a movie made for TV it is quite decent. And I just saw there is a sequel to this? Well I doubt I will be watching that anytme soon ... too much on my watchlist ... this is quite predictable with the bad guys unable to ... well shoot straight if you'll excuse another pun to end it ... something you may wish the movie would do long before it actually ends ... with the sequel it obviously doesn't really though.