Sugar Mountain

I woke up at night due to a storm and looked for some entertainment. This movie caught my eye, unfortunately.

It is a principle of mine to always finish a movie, out of courtesy. This time it was tough. Way too long, I had to force myself not to fast forward.

Empty characters, forced interactions and dialogue, a ridiculous concept to begin with.

All in all, pretty bad. If you watch this and feel any kind of sympathy or any kind of feeling towards any of the cardboard characters, then kudos to you.

There are too many plot twists to be believable, and the characters are bit flat. There are moments when I just rolled my eyes in disbelief at how unimaginative the writing. I felt nothing for the characters, and the story isn't anchored with any practical ideas.

"He knows the mountains too well no one would believe he got lost. You'd have to do it." Miles (Roy) and Liam (Coffey) are brothers who have been struggling. Looking for ways to make money they decide to fake a disappearance and sell their story. Miles, heads up a mountain while Liam reports him missing. What seems like a quick and easy way to make money soon changes the lives of everyone involved. This is a movie that had such promise. The idea was interesting and had me looking forward to seeing it. What the movie became though was a jumbled mess of plot lines that came from everywhere and made it hard to not only get into but keep from laughing at. This fake disappearance movie contained a hardened un-trusting cop, blackmail, an angry collection thug, false accusations, constantly changing sides and stories, hidden secrets and more family drama than a soap opera. The movie was just too over the place and distracted from the main focus of the movie, but then again it was hard to tell what the main focus was. Overall, a jumbled mess that reminded me of Aloha in the way that there were just too many story lines that didn't seem to fit with each other. That aspect really really hurt what could have been an interesting and tense movie. I give this a C+.

The premise of the movie, Sugar Mountain, sounds intriguing, but the execution of the story turns out to be lackluster/mediocre at best. It lacks either good direction, writing, acting or whatever it is that makes a movie thrilling and dramatic. The movie has many twists and turns, but I felt no excitement for or interest in any of the characters and their situations. Cary Elwes delivers the best performance acting-wise, while the others are okay.

Contrast this movie with let's say the movie, A Simple Plan, which is dramatic, suspenseful, thrilling and has excellent acting throughout where you feel for the characters and their various plights.

Overall, If you're bored and just want to watch something to pass some time, Sugar Mountain is watchable...just barely.

I don't quite understand how this movie is incurring such poor ratings since it is one of the more original films I've seen in some time.

Special effects? Forget it. This is pure wilderness territory in panoramic play. Wild Alaska at its finest in natural scenery, music (native Alaskans Black Railroad Company with bluegrass twang and a rugged, rustic feel), with "real" people in the background throughout.

I could not predict anything that would happen in this film even though it *appeared* mundanely spelled out from the outset. Nothing is at it seems in 'Sugar Mountain'; for that, my interest was sustained and entangled with the very good acting, plot twists, and disbelief throughout.

This movie felt very Indie-"ish" to me. I appreciated the stripped down rawness and feeling of realness. If you're looking for glitz, elite Hollywood garbage, again forget it.

This is deeper than that.