Business tycoon and pantomime-style villain Madec (Michael Douglas) hires young tour guide Ben (Jeremy Irvine) to bring him out to the Mojave Desert to – boo, hiss, etc – hunt game. Between phone calls pertaining to an ill-defined Chinese business deal, the weekender Gordon Gecko inadvertently shoots a grizzled old prospector, a loss, we suspect, for central casting.
Right-minded Ben naturally wants to report the accident, but Madec has other, more ludicrous ideas: namely, to strip the youngster, leave him wandering in the blazing sun until he dies, then pin the shooting on him.
Even before Mr Douglas is seen to grab a not-quite-Acme brand stick of dynamite and hurl it into a mine shaft – don't ask – where Ben has taken refuge, Beyond the Reach has the viewer wondering when Mr Irvine will utter the immortal phrase: 'Meep Meep'.
A time to keeeellll
To be fair, Irvine and Douglas bring movie star gravitas and thespian clout to a woeful screenplay that includes such stock phrases as "I Keeeellll You". Veteran actor Ronny Cox also delights in a small, bookending role as the local sheriff. But, even with many months to go in the calendar year, we're fairly certain that no other picture will compete with this one in the 'Ah here' stakes.
Ben finds the unfortunate prospector’s hand-drawn, cartoonishly rendered map. Ah here. Madec keeps losing sight of his prey because he’s chatting about the Asian deal. Ah here.
Odd as it sounds, we could happily roll along with the man-hunting silliness and Douglas doing a less sympathetic rendition of Wile E Coyote. But Beyond the Reach takes an absolute age to muddle every set-piece right up until the film's death-defyingly daft denouement, an ending so breathtakingly, eye-rubbingly stupid, it's almost worth the admission price. Ah here.
