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Greetings from Lithuania.

"Beyond the Reach" (2014) is nice little flick for some boring evening. It has nothing special, nothing original, nothing really great yet it is an enjoyable thriller, but with a bad ending, very bad ending.

Michael Douglas was the first and only reason why i saw this flick in the first place. He does not disappoint, but sadly there is almost absolutely nothing to do in here for THIS caliber actor. Jeremy Irvine is quite good in here, but the role doesn't requires much except for physical suffering.

Overall, "Beyond the Reach" was nice little flick. I enjoyed for what it was, but the ending was terrible. That wouldn't happen in real life not in a million years. Who wrote THAT bad ending?

Occasionally we all get needy. So Ben, a young hunting guide, may perhaps be forgiven for taking a large bribe from an arrogant, ridiculously wealthy and fearless client. The two descend into the Mojave Desert wilderness in order to hunt bighorn out of season. There are many red flags to this, yet Ben's girlfriend just left for college and he is left considering if solitude and poverty are in his future. Deep into the desert it is not long before an incident occurs that sets Ben and Madec, a C.E.O. with a sport utility vehicle that costs over half a million dollars, at odds with each other. It is the old-school-young versus the new-technology-old in a delicious thriller. Michael Douglas, starring as Madec, returns to his stock and trade as a depraved and greedy man who lets no one get in the way of himself and his obsessions. Douglas gives a fine performance, yet he can't carry the film on his own. It is far-fetched, shallow and disjointed at times. The film is, however, compelling and fulfilling in its story and the possibilities it presents. It gives truth to Melville's saying that "an utterly fearless companion is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward." Seen at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival.

It starts off seeming a mismatched buddy comedy but soon turns into a tale of blackmail and self-preservation. Ben wants to fess up and take it to the feds. Madec, with his mind on a pending deal with the Chinese, wants to cover the whole thing up, and sets out to silence Ben. So in the end the story evolves like a terrible chase but both the actors give a good performance and the filming locations are charming as well. This cat-and-mouse chase across the desert that follows is fairly entertaining to begin with but unnecessarily drawn out, leaving far too much room for Douglas to plug with cartoonish quips and daft machismo. Overall the story works, though ending up to be predictable, especially in its final part.

A small scale thriller in a very wide setting. The Mojave dessert. Off course this film is predictable yet it still had it's surprises and it has a brilliant turn from Michael Douglas as the pervertedly rich and megalomanic exec out on a hunting trip. He is nicely countered by the young guide he takes along as they soon run into a whole heap of unexpected trouble.

This is mostly Jeremy Irvine's film and he does a fine job but it's Douglas who shines in his role. It's almost as if Gordon Gecko has finally made it big and is now wasting his days and money shooting big game all over the world.

The story has plenty of tense and painful moments and some glorious views of the surroundings. The ending however was pretty abrupt. Without going into detail: I was okay with the ending... until it went on. Those last minutes were just so ridiculous they almost ruined the film. It just did not fit the mood of the rest of the story.

Apparently this story has been done before, some 40 years ago, don't know which film, but I know I've seen it more recently starring Lance Henriksen and Luke Goss. The film "Bone Dry". Very comparable, at least as nice as this one and without the ridiculous ending.

So overall pretty good, great turn from Mr Douglas but just walk away at 85 min. 6/10

Adapted from the book by Robb White called "Deathwatch"which upon looking at the poster itself the set up is quite long, showcasing on front of a trailer Ben(Jeremy Irving) having some money problems with girlfriend Laina (Hanna Mangan-Lawrence) before he visits sheriff (Ronny Cox) for a gig as a guide for game hunting in the desert for a customer and wealthy business man, Madec played by Michael Douglas who's also credited as one of the producers. Once reaching in the middle of the desert and on foot we learn more and more about the 2 characters as we learn that Madec does not even have a proper license to hunt around the area who then offers Ben some bribe money to look the other way. He reluctantly accepts as he realizes he still has money problems. As soon as both men spot something above the mountains after waiting long hours, trigger happy Madec shoots at it without verifying at what he was shooting at. And it was during then Madec offers Ben a much more prosperous deal involving a possible cover up. Ben then made things much worse for himself once he begins to renege on the deal he had made with Medec as soon as he caught Ben making a single attempt to call authorities who then with his rifle pointed at him to strip down to his shorts before trolling him through the desert. With Ben's desert expertise will he be able to survive this? Particularly with his bare feet through the hot desert without drinking any water? The only thing I am going to say is that without some luck. And his somewhat familiar settings about a certain someone Ben knows about who conveniently also happens to live in the desert the star may not have survived it at all. And although some of the main critics did not like this movie I was still entertained and that to me is good enough.

"We had a deal. And where I come from, a deal is a deal."

It's so much fun to watch a movie in which two individuals chase each other and a cat and mouse game begins resulting in a battle to the death. Recently we saw two Hollywood stars try this theme in "Killing Season". It wasn't exactly an impressive film and after a while the ping-pong game between the two opponents started to irritate. For "Beyond the reach" an old class act of Hollywood was recruited. Only this time it's a unilateral hunt pattern that's being showed here. Unfortunately, the film collapses like a failed soufflé at the end. For once it's something that most film critics unanimously agree with. This time there are no diametrically opposed camps with contrarian views. This film had a promising start with chilling tension and an acclaimed chemistry between the two main characters. But the absurd and completely messed up ending screwed it completely and made absolutely no sense.

Madec (Michael Douglas) is a pedantic rich man with an arrogant attitude, who acts as if the whole universe turns around his own little person. He arrives in a tiny village along the Mojave desert to hunt a bighorn (probably a missing trophy on the wall). Ben (Jeremy Irvine) is hired for this task. He's a young guy who's well known as the best tracker in that environment. Before you know it, they are on the move in a giant fairground attraction on 6 wheels (worth $ 500,000 and imported) equipped with satellite telephone, espresso machine, microwave oven and a remote-controlled music system. Madec has spared no expense for this trip and is also equipped with a Steyr Scout 308 imported from Austria. In retrospect, he's also quite generous when it appears that he doesn't really have a permit to shoot down the rare animal. Madec is a typical snob who thinks everything is for sale. Until the hunt ends in a catastrophe and he accidentally shoots the local desert dweller Charlie. Charlie is someone Ben knew for a long time already and probably learned him some tricks of survival and how to live in the wilderness. How it proceeds can be guessed easily. Ben suddenly becomes the hunted one in this relentless, scorching desert.

The last movie I've watched with Douglas starring in, is "Last Vegas". Overall this wasn't a bad film and I watched it with pleasure. Yet Douglas fits better in a role as a charismatic manipulator and overwhelming bastard. A role as in "Falling Down" or "Fatal Attraction". It was a pleasure to see him again shining as a sadistic,unassailable bad ass. Irvine also meets the expectations and apparently spent several hours in the gym. His upper body is more muscular than the one he showed in "The railway man." His character stands in stark contrast to that of Douglas. An orphaned young man whose girlfriend just left him to start her studies at the university and for whom everyday life is financially more difficult than that of Madec. His battle against the elements in the desert was realistic and proved again he owns some excellent acting skills. Also the people of the makeup department deserve a pat on the shoulder.

The highlight of the film is undeniably the acting of Douglas. The sadistic game that he plays in the sweltering desert and how he enjoys seeing his prey slowly but surely reaching the end, is absolutely top notch acting. The absolute worst part is the denouement. Not that it's inconceivable (because everything can be bought with money), but it's so abrupt. An excellent movie with an intriguing interplay that's being performed for more than an hour, is being reduced into a pale third-rate thriller in sheer 10 minutes. Was there a plausible ending, than this would have been a masterful film.

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"Beyond this point there will be monsters." Ben (Irvine) is a master tracker and guide who has been hired my Madec (Douglas), a rich businessman. After leading him out to a barren desert wasteland Madec's true colors come out. Now, facing a dangerous situation, Ben must find a way out, alive and in time to warn others. This movie isn't really anything amazing but it is also entertaining and very watchable. I did like the movie but one thing kept bugging me about it the entire time. Michael Douglas is a sharpshooter and ruthless, yet the entire movie revolves around him trying to kill Ben. I would think one shot could do it...on the other hand if that happened there would be no movie. All that out of the way though the movie is tense in some parts, but becomes somewhat repetitive and loses steam toward the end. Again though, I did like this and this is not a bad rent. Overall, nothing amazing, but it is entertaining enough to keep you watching for the entire hour and a half. I give this a B-.

Ultra wealthy businessman , Madec (Michael Douglas), needs a new trophy, a long horned sheep. He hires Ben (Jeremy Irvine) as a tracker to hunt in the Mojave Desert. He thinks he spots a long horned sheep and fires, and he and Ben see that Madec has killed Charlie (Martin Palmer) who lived and roamed in the desert. Madec makes a deal with Ben to cover this up. The way he does this is quite clever. Ben agrees then changes his mind. Madec makes Ben take off his clothes to walk the desert hoping Ben will die.

As Ben goes off into the hot burning desert (Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!) Madec tracks him in his $500,000 SUV, his rifle, and with binoculars as he needs to see Ben die; and we keep hoping Ben will find something to get out of this predicament.

The rest of the movie shows Ben struggling to get away from Madec and we do see some surprises so it's not as boring as one might suspect.

The acting is good all around.

The ending isn't what I expected, but it'll do. (5/10)

Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: Soft stuff only.

There's an allure of two men engaging in high stake wit battle. Beyond the Reach has simple premise to produce interesting suspense. The desert setting gives a specific barren and demanding background for survival of the fittest. Unfortunately, the movie loses momentum in midway point as the plot holes are mounting against them. These illogical scenes hamper any suspense the movie has built up from the first half, and unless audiences have generous suspension of disbelief, the last act is completely underwhelming.

Story follows two men as they both hunt in the desert. Ben (Jeremy Irvine) is a guide for Madec (Michael Douglas), right from the start they don't mesh together that well. When an accident happens, their interests clash and things escalate out of control. For the role of powerful ambitious man, Michael Douglas can't be a bad cast as he has repeatedly performed well as such character in many other movies. However, the script gives his character several bad decisions which are contradicting his action merely five minutes ago.

Jeremy Irvine is a good actor, he performed admirably in War Horse and also Woman in Black 2. He's a decent cast, and at first half it's easy to relate to his ordinary character as Ben. Problems arise after the two men trade trickery for their own interests. While the battle of old versus young and the gap of technology might produces a few thrilling moments, the rest of the plot suffers from irrational choices. The plot holes culminate in a bizarre last act, which nullifies any buzz it may have produced.

Visual is presentable, the desert carries the sense of desolation and helplessness adequately. The two main characters don't have the best on-screen spark, though their exchanges of verbal and genuine blows are pretty convincing. Their relationships outside their ordeal in the desert aren't well established and as the movie tries to wrap up, these mismatches and irregular plot twists make the ending hard to take it seriously.

Beyond the Reach is at its peak as men fighting each other and the element, unfortunately it doesn't translate well beyond that and it definitely doesn't end on high note.

When the big production houses along with the great filmmakers and young stars turning towards the comic books and dystopian themes, what do you think the yesteryear legends are doing.

It is very sad to see the 70s, 80s and the 90s icons are discarded like a trash, but they're trying their best to keep the star status by doing small scale films from the lower rated and debuting filmmakers. That's the best shot they've got which obviously won't do well at the big screens. So that's where this film too comes in.

As usual Michael Douglas was good, but the story had many possible ways to travel and that's where the viewers raise their voice by saying it should have been like this, like that or why would he do that.

Overall, its a decent entertainment that is kind of closest theme to 'No Country for Old Men'. The entire film revolves around just two men and sets in the desert. So a minimal cast film.

Based on the book 'Deathwatch'. A simple story, but quite interesting film characters. Filled with fairly predictable stuffs yet the performances and very suitable locations are what draws us in.

It's a right kind of project for Michael Douglas for his age, but the 'War Horse' actor was also good in his role. An average film, or maybe just above that. If you skip it, you would miss nothing, but if you give it a try, I think that's not a bad idea too.

6/10

The whole movie is a joke. The plot is so predictable just by watching the first 20 minutes. Here is a summary of the movie, without spoilers: Normal mission gone bad, the whole plot can be completed just by pulling the trigger, apparently archaic weapons= guns, water heals wounds and exhaustion, the finale is... what it is. I don't recommend this movie, it's literally pointless!

An old rich guy who likes to hunt pays a young scout to help him find some big game out in the desert. Something goes wrong and the two start a conflict that can't end well.

Michael Douglas still has a solid presence in the screen and you get to see some wild landscape. But the actual plot after the "thing" that will go wrong seems like ridiculous to me and to the people I know they saw the movie. Lots of hasty decisions without thinking.

Anyway, this isn't going to the Oscars but it is somehow watchable and 90 minutes pass relative quickly if you don't mind the, in my opinion, incoherent plot. As a plus you get to see the new Benz 6X6 before it reaches the production line. Reportedly costs more than half a million.

I have definitely seen worse movies that I paid good money to watch in theaters. I really don't know why this got bad reviews.

The action was pretty good for what they had to work with out in the middle of a desert. There is really no place to hide when you are trying to run away from a millionaire mad man with a 4x4. The ending did seem like it was a little thrown together though.

The casting was really well picked. Paul Hill really fit his part well.

The landscape for this movie was amazing. If you want to see some awesome desert scenery of New Mexico this is the movie to watch. A lot of the movie was filmed in the Farmington and Shiprock New Mexico area.

Michael Douglas is OK as an actor but this movie should be called Beyond Stupid. Several times the movie becomes unbelievable. Good scenery throughout. The ending, as noted by others here, is awful. This is one of those endings where somebody said to the writer "We gotta finish this tomorrow. Give me a couple of pages with very little dialog."

The movie actually had a good basic plot with some OK characters.

Andy Griffith made a movie with a similar plot long ago and it was better.

For a good desert movie I would recommend Lawrence of Arabia. For a movie with a good ending I recommend Some Like it Hot or Casablanca. For a more believable movie experience I recommend Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

I don't know why Beyond the Reach got such a low rating - it's a nice thrilling ride with some good acting. For certain, the movie is no masterpiece but what I would call solid entertaining - of hunting and being hunted with maybe some logic issues.

Review: What a terrible, pointless movie! I'm usually a fan of Michael Douglas films but this one just didn't make any sense to me. He plays a wealthy trophy hunter called Madec, who goes to the Mojave desert to hunt. He hires an experienced young tracker, Ben (Jeremy Irvine) and while they are walking around to find there prey, Madec let's of a shot which kills someone. Madec then starts to panic and he offers the tracker loads of money to keep quiet because he is in the process of closing a big deal and he doesn't want anything to damage his reputation. Whilst deciding what to do with the body, Ben tries to make a distress call to his headquarters which makes Madec angry and he goes to extreme measures to embarrass the boy. He makes him walk through the desert in his shorts, with no water or food and he uses him as a hunting tool by continuously shooting at him. This is were the storyline really didn't make any sense to me. If he wanted him dead, he had loads of chances to shoot him. If he didn't want to shoot him, he could have just left him in the desert to die. I really didn't see the point of the whole movie because Douglas started to get angry because the boy was finding caves with food, water and clothes. So my question remains, why didn't he just kill him. The ending was completely ridiculous because Madec could have easily hired a hit-man to kill Ben with all of his wealth. Anyway, I'm not going to pick out all of the sketchy parts of the script because this film is really not worth the time and effort. For a Michael Douglas movie, the box office takings were also appalling and I personally thought that the performances were also pretty bad so it's really has to go down as a bad day at the office. Disappointing!

Round-Up: Michael Douglas, 71, has been at the top of the movie game for some time, so it's surprising when he stars in a low budget, straight to DVD movie, which he hasn't done in some time. He recently starred in Ant-Man, which happens to be the highest grossed movie that he has ever been in, with a whopping $410million at the box office, before it's DVD release. Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction and Disclosure are also big money earners for Douglas and I doubt that you will be surprised to know that this movie is his lowest grossed movie of all time. He's only made around 45 movies in his career which have grossed over $3Billion at the box office and he's due to star alongside Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich, Toni Collette and Noomi Rapace in Unlocked, so he can put this terrible movie behind him. This is the first English speaking movie from director Jean-Baptiste Leonitti. Although I been slating film, I think it's a combination of things that made it a disaster, so I won't totally put the blame on him. After reading the script, I'm surprised that Michael Douglas went ahead with the project because the whole thing needed a rewrite. 

Budget: N/A Worldwide Gross: $282,000

I recommend this movie to people who are into their thrillers starring Michael Douglas and Jeremy Irvine. 2/10

PROS: Hands down the best part of this movie was the acting. I haven't seen acting this good in such a long time. The genuineness and rawness the actors showed was incredible. The characters shared bonds that initiated much of their decisions. The environment was a character in this film. You don't often find that the setting/scenery in which the movie takes place to be so influential, but in this case the environment really acts as though it is its own person. The desert had character development and personality. It played a key role in what made this film what it was. The other thing to point out would be how unparalleled the story ark was compared to any other film I have seen. There was man vs. wild and man vs. man and those two attributes were very well articulated throughout the film. 

CONS: The one thing for me would have to be how confusing the end of the movie got. I was stuck with the legitimacy of the storyline. The whole film you were gifted with an exceptional idea and setting, but at the end you get a very unwelcoming slap in the face when the movie tries to add stuff that it really didn't need. The extra bells and whistles weren't able to enhance the film which is what their goal was, but in fact it actually drew away from the pureness and integrity of it.

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Michael Douglas is a very rich man. He is hunting bear in high country, and hires Jeremy Irvine as his guide. But things go wrong; Douglas shoots the wrong target, and Irvine won't keep quiet. Douglas can't afford to let it get out. He also can't simply shoot Irvine, since his very expensive and unique hunting rifle will show him to be a murderer. So he drives Irvine off, planning to let the blazing sun finish him, while Douglas sips the finest martinis. He plans to tell the authorities that Irvine made the shot.... but Irvine half naked in the blazing sun, won't die.

It's a variation of The Most Dangerous Game, with Douglas playing the cool, calm, collected, sociopathic master of the universe he does in this sort of role. DP Russell Carpenter shoots the high country, the sort that John Ford's cameramen turned into beautiful sets, with a burnt-out look that renders them ugly and foreboding.