BEYOND THE REACH
Roadside Attractions
Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes.
Grade: B
Director: Jean-Baptiste Léonetti
Screenwriter:  Stephen Susco, from Robb White’s book “Deathwatch”
Cast:  Michael Douglas, Jeremy Irvine
Screened at: Dolby24, NYC, 4/7/15
Opens:  April 17, 2015

This year’s third month has gone down as the coldest March on record in those parts of the Northeast afflicted with a steady reading of five degrees on the Fahrenheit scale.  But as some say, there is no such thing as cold weather: there is only the wrong clothing.  If you wear the right layers of heavily insulated coats and pants, you can comfortably go out even in Vladivostok in January, but if on the other hand the temperature is 120 degrees in the shade with no pool or natural water as far as the eye can see, you can’t shed your skin.  You’re going to be sizzling as is the case of one hapless youth in Jean-Baptiste Léonetti’s “Beyond the Reach.”  Léonetti is best known for a strikingly original “Carré blanc” about a brutal futuristic society, but though “Beyond the Reach” is far-fetched, almost a parody of movies with the cat-and-mouse subgenre, it is based solidly on the present world.  This is essentially a two-hander between an A-list actor in the news recently because of his serious illness and his decision to take a year off with his family to see the world, and a handsome young fellow who does just fine against a man with whom he should feel intimidated.  While Michael Douglas performs in the role of a fabulously rich corporate hot-shot (duh), the entire film shot by veteran photographer Russell Carpenter is located on a small spread of land, a no-man’s land at that, in which Douglas’s character, Madec, raises even his own stakes by making sport of hunting a human being, who is played by Jeremy Irvine as Ben.

Price is no object for Madec, who drives around in a $500,000 custom-made Mercedes and who hunts not with something as commonplace as a Winchester but with an Austrian rifle with a scope made to his specs.  When Madec is not phoning his associate about a deal with Beijing to sell a company to the Chinese for one hundred twenty million dollars—which would mean the loss of 860 jobs in America, the cad—he is traipsing around the Mojave desert (filmed in Farmington, New Mexico and Shiprock Mountain on the Navajo Nation) with Ben, his newly-hired guide.  Since Madec does not possess a license to shoot longhorn sheep, he bribes Ben to keep quiet.  Ben’s acceptance of the money foreshadows how Ben should be expected to act later, when Madec accidentally shoots an old man who lives in a nearby cave, then tries to cover up the Dick Cheney-like action by bribing the kid once again, but this time with $300,000, and, to make sure the kid does not spill the beans to the sheriff (Ronny Cox) or to his girlfriend Laina (Hanna Mangan Lawrence), he takes further action.

The further action involves casting Ben as prey, stripping him of everything except Ben’s underpants, and forcing him to walk without water through the desert with nobody around to help.  As Ben turns redder by the minute, followed by Madec who, of course, could have shot him and be done with it but prefer the hunt, we expect the rich guy to do what rich guys have always done—which is to get away scot free with a double killing.

“Beyond the Reach” could have had a sophisticated ending, cutting the final fifteen minutes or so, but to his discredit scripter Stephen Susco , in adapting Robb White’s 1972 novel “Deathwatch” (made into a 1974 TV film “Savages” starring Andy Griffith and Sam Bottoms) goes for the conventional.  It’s fun to watch Douglas parody the rich as his character, Madec, trots out a cappuccino machine from his half million dollar vehicle and, while Ben is literally dying for water, pours himself a Margarita while listening to Mozart’s Piano Concerto Number 22.  The trouble is that Léonetti may not really be winking at his audience as though to say, “Aren’t we having fun sending up the one percent?” but is playing this for real, in which case audience laughs would be unintentional.

Otherwise, the picture is watchable enough, with just two actors and a handful of slim side roles keeping reasonable interest in the melodramatics.

Rated R.  90 minutes.  © Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online

Story – C+
Acting – B
Technical – B+
Overall – B