Tag: wilderness

Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa

  By

★★★
“Top of the world.”

Reaching the summit of Mount Everest once is a remarkable achievement, done by only a few thousand people in history, with hundreds having died in the attempt. But what about climbing the world’s highest peak on no less than ten occasions? Such is the achievement of Lhakpa Sherpa, a woman from Nepal who had to overcome remarkable adversity in a number of ways to complete this feat. This documentary is the story, both of her tenth (and most recent, to date at least!) ascent, and of her life. It’s an impressive story of fortitude, though never really answers my most burning question. I can understand wanting to climb Everest once. But why do it so many times?

Lhakpa was born in 1973, and grew up when girls weren’t allowed to go to school. She carried her brother there, two hours each way, but wasn’t allowed to learn herself. This didn’t stop her from breaking with local tradition in a number of ways. She had a child outside of wedlock, and also became a mountain porter as a teenager, another position reserved for men – she cut her hair short, so her gender would be less apparent. In 2000, she became the first Nepalese woman to reach the top of Everest and survive. The same year, she met climber Gheorghe Dimarescu and the pair married in 2002. They climbed together, and had two daughters, Sunny and Shiny. But there was a dark side, with her husband’s vicious temper turning their relationship abusive, until she left him in 2012.

I do feel the film rather overplays this element of Lhakpa’s life. While it’s obviously significant, it almost seems to robs her of agenda, forcing the viewer to see much of the events through the lens of his behaviour. The structure may enhance this. Rather than unfolding chronologically, there are two parallel streams, one depicting her tenth attempt to reach the top, while the other slowly fills in the background of her life, and the two never quite seemed to mesh effectively for me. Her attitude in dealing with life’s obstacles is amazing, and leave a remarkable impression, such as how Lhakpa worked in a Connecticut supermarket, while raising her two daughters, before returning to her home country.

It does appear her profile has been raised by her remarkable, and largely under the radar, achievements. The documentary shows her finding a sponsor who will fund expeditions: I don’t know if she still works in Whole Foods! I hope not, because she deserves better, with the simple facts of her story being immensely empowering to anyone, and a lesson that any dream can be achieved. But I did not feel that this film really provided much more insight into the person, than a reading of her Wikipedia page would have offered. I was left with questions, such as about her first child, which the film didn’t want to address, and it felt like some outside viewpoints (even Lhakpa’s family) would have benefited the end product. It remains worth a watch: just don’t expect more than a surface portrait.

Dir: Lucy Walker
Star: Lhakpa Sherpa, Sunny Dijmarescu, Shiny Dijmarescu

First Daughter

  By

★★½
“Secret Service with a smile.”

El Jardinero isn’t the only long-delayed review of a franchise opener. I saw First Shot, the third movie in this series about Secret Service Agent Alex McGregor (Hemingway), back in 2014, and at the time it was the only entry present on Netflix. A decade later, I now get the chance to catch up with the first entry and… it is pretty much what you’d expect. Competent enough for a TV movie, but the limitations of that medium are always going to knee-cap the material. This does begin well enough, with an energetic terrorist attack on a fundraiser for President Jonathan Hayes (Harrison) by members of the American Freedom Fighters – this clearly dates outside the 2001-16 window when domestic terrorism was ignored. 

His life is saved by Alex, but only after she disobeys orders from her boss, which gets her into hot water. Still, a few months later, she is selected to accompany Hayes’s teenage daughter, Jess (Keena), on a wilderness adventure trip. Unfortunately, this drops them right into the Colorado terrain (actually Australia, but who can tell the difference?) where the AFF militia are hiding out. They get the bright idea of kidnapping Jess, so they can exchange her for their leader, captured during the attack mentioned above. Jess is the only agent to survive the initial assault, and so it’s up to her and tour guide Grant Coleman (Savant) to track the terrorists through the forest, and free Jess from their clutches

This is spottily entertaining, and you can probably tell most of the story beats in advance. Jess resents Alex’s presence on the trip, while Alex and Grant get off on the wrong foot – but you just know everyone is going to grow to respect each other by the end of the film. However, it holds together well enough, with decent performances from Hemingway and Savant, who make for a likeable pair. It is front-loaded, with the original attack a nifty piece of bullet-ridden carnage, before the film then goes to sleep on that front. It’s instead busy introducing characters, establishing relationships and making Alex do rock-climbing to prove she’s not a lesbian. Or something like that. My notes are a bit unclear on the point.

It has to be said, despite the presence of WWE’s Diamond Dallas Page among them, the AFF members are very much low-grade terrorists. There’s only three of the left, and I would not say smarts are their strong suit. As threats go, they’re lightweights. It was also a little disappointing how McGregor ends up needing to be rescued in the climax. While it’s an acceptable conclusion, tying up a dangling loose end, it does weaken her as a protagonist. There is some impressive bits of white-water action, and in generally, it feels more like a low-budget theatrical feature than a made for television one: its budget of $5 million certainly feels more than the typical nineties TVM. If my review of the third entry was scathing, I suspect it won’t take another ten years before I review the second.

Dir: Armand Mastroianni
Star: Mariel Hemingway, Doug Savant, Monica Keena, Gregory Harrison

Hope

  By

★★
“Hope isn’t necessarily good.”

Hope (Larkin-Coyle) is an aspiring vlogger, though has not yet figured out how to make it pay sufficiently to quit her grindingly dull day job, for a boss who perpetually questions Hope’s commitment. She’s not wrong, because Hope’s heart definitely lives in the outdoors, not at a desk or in a Zoom meeting. Her particular niche of content creation is in wilderness adventures, whether that’s going up mountains, diving underwater or – as in this case – scaling a cliff-face. She then posts the videos online, so that others can live vicariously through her experience. She’s excited for her next trip, which will take her back to a part of Ireland by the ocean, which was a favourite haunt of her late mother.

However, a moment’s inattention leads to disaster, with Hope sent plummeting to the rocks below. When she regains consciousness, she finds her shin bone shattered and sticking out of her leg. With (inevitably!) no cell signal, she is thrown back on her own resources, and will have to make her way out of an increasingly precarious situation, entirely by herself. As you can imagine from this synopsis, it puts a lot of weight on the shoulders of the lead actress, and it’s all a little contrived. Initially, I expected there to be much more of her speaking to the camera, documenting events for her online followers. But the film doesn’t really go that way, favoring a more general voicing of Hope’s inner monologue.

In the main, to be blunt, you are basically watching a woman crawl across rocks for an hour, and I’m probably stating the obvious when I say that this is of limited appeal. There are some inconsistencies which seemed annoying at the time, almost as if whole scenes had been removed. One second, Hope is on a beach. The next, she’s swimming in the water – broken leg and all. Then she’s suddenly marooned in a cave. There’s also character stupidity, such as Hope’s ignorance or wilful disregard for basic survival protocols. However, there’s a third-act twist which, to be fair, goes a long way to explaining what had gone before. On the other hand, you’re left wondering if perhaps the film-makers have sabotaged the entire point with it.

A more definite problem is the sense that there simply is not enough happening here. The fall, presumably for budgetary reasons, is a simple fade to black accompanied by a scream. I will say, the sounds Coyle makes when exploring her wound are legitimately harrowing, and help sell her injury as much as the small but effective effects work on her leg. That takes care of about five minutes, leaving… 93 others, which fall well short of possessing the same degree of intensity. It feels as if the makers were looking to paint a psychological portrait, using the frame of a wilderness survival story. As someone who was expecting a genuine wilderness survival story, I’m left feeling distinctly short-changed, and a little bit cheated.

Dir: Bobby Marno
Star: Sadhbh Larkin Coyle

Deep Fear

  By

★★
“Shallow entertainment”

Naomi (Ghenea) is sailing a schooner single-handed in the Caribbean, returning it from Antigua to Grenada so it’ll be ready for a charter customer to take out. Her boyfriend, Jackson (Westwick) has already gone ahead to prepare things there. But a squall diverts Naomi off course, and she then stumbles across boat wreckage to which Maria (Gómez) and Jose (Coppet) are desperately clinging. They tell her there’s still a survivor trapped on the sea bottom, and Naomi dives down to rescue Tomas from his watery tomb. However, on returning to the surface with him, she gets a nasty surprise and finds her work is not over. For the survivors were also transporting 200 kg of cocaine.

Naomi is now key to salvaging it, whether she wants to be or not. Complicating matters is the presence of a large, predatory shark prowling the area, which makes simply going up and down from the sea bottom a perilous endeavour. Especially after one such encounter, where we get the immortal line, “The shark bit into the bags and now the shark is probably high on cocaine.” Sadly, hopes that this was going to become a sequel to Cocaine Bear never materialized [there is a film out there called Cocaine Shark, but it’s so bad, even a hardened connoisseur of badfilm like I, couldn’t get through the trailer] . Instead, there’s just an awful lot of sub-aqua shenanigans, and there’s really only so much SCUBA-ing I can take.

I will say, it all looks lovely. Malta actually stood in for the Caribbean, and if you’re looking for a picturesque tourist destination, combining beautiful scenery with clear water, it seems a good bet. However, as a thriller, it’s distinctly lacking in thrills, whether it’s a shark whose diet seems exclusively to consist of the bad people, through a cast for whom English is not their native tongue in many cases, to a heroine whose lips appear recently to have encountered a swarm of wasps [I note Ghenea’s credit in Zoolaander 2 as “Hot Shepherdess”]. The pacing is also off, especially early, when irrelevancies like Naomi and Jackson renting an apartment show up, serving no apparent purpose except delaying her arrival on the scene.

Gómez, whom you might remember from SexyKiller, is likely the best element the film has to offer, switching from cowering victim to manipulative sociopath. For instance, Maria conceals her nautical skills because if Naomi realizes she’s surplus to requirements after bringing up the coke, she might not be willing to do so. That kind of smarts is something the film needs to have more, ideally replacing the apparently endless amounts of moist mischief. I did like how the shark attacks don’t hold back on the blood, something you don’t see often. However, the creature rarely feels more than a toothy plot-device, thrown into scenes whenever the film-makers run out of other ways to generate tension. And that is far too often, to be honest.

Dir: Marcus Adams
Star: Mãdãlina Ghenea, Ed Westwick, Macarena Gómez, Stany Coppet

The File, by Gary Born

  By

Literary rating: ★★★
Kick-butt quotient: ☆☆☆

Not many novels come with a ringing endorsement from a former director of the CIA, but Gina Haspel calls this “A thoroughly enjoyable, engrossing thriller.” Argue with her, and she’ll send you an exploding cigar, or something. While it certainly isn’t bad, the rating above reflects its likely moderate appeal for readers here. A general audience might be more impressed, especially with regard to the second half, where the heroine becomes more of a passenger. Things begin at the very end of World War II with a flight out of Berlin carrying documents intended to secure the future of the Reich. It doesn’t reach its destination, crashing in the depths of the African jungle.

Almost eighty years later, a botanical expedition stumbles across the downed plane and its cargo. When word seeps out, various very interested parties converge on the Congo, intent on securing the contents by any means necessary. Surviving the initial onslaught is Sara West, daughter of the expedition’s head, who bails with the documents, and the parties in hot pursuit. In the jungle at least, Sara has more experience and proves eminently capable of turning the tables on her pursuers. After escaping the wilderness, she convinces one of the hunters, CIA agent Jeb Fisher, to change sides, and his assistance becomes increasingly valuable as they head through Africa, into Italy, and eventually to Zurich. There, they make a final stand, in the unlikely location of a venerable Swiss bank.

The above should hopefully explain why this feels like a book of two halves. I really enjoyed the first half, with Sara using all her knowledge, built on years of living in the jungle, to stay one step ahead of the opposition – or sneak up from behind on them. She rarely over-powers her enemies, relying more on stealth, wits and turning their own resources against them. It is still a bit of a stretch to imagine a young woman, untrained in combat, taking out a whole slew of Russian special forces. However, Born certainly sells the illusion well enough to work. The problems arise with the arrival of Jeb, not least the ease with which he disobeys orders to take Sara’s side.

Thereafter, he also becomes the main protagonist. While it makes sense that his skills would become more important outside of the jungle, it results in Sara being somewhat (though not entirely) sidelined. There’s also the almost inevitable romantic dalliance, and I feel that having a Jebina instead of Jeb, might have addressed that, and a lot of the problems I felt hampered the second half. It’s still a decent enough read on its own terms, building nicely towards the grandstand finale – although I can’t imagine even Swiss authorities taking so long to get to a hellacious firefight in downtown Zurich! But I feel it does not do Sara the justice she deserves, especially after the impressive heights reached earlier on.

Author: Gary Born
Publisher: Addison & Highsmith Publishers, available through Amazon, both as a paperback and an e-book
Standalone novel

The Dive

  By

★★
“Breaking bad.”

This is an English language remake of Breaking Surface, a 2020 film from Sweden. It is also a sterling demonstration of what happens when you do not follow the Golden Rule of Remakes. “Only remake a film if you can improve on the original.” The first red flag here is the quick turnaround, just three years after the original. It’s clear that the idea here is simply to copy the film, for an English language audience who don’t want to read subtitles. We’ve seen this kind of thing before, when Nikita was turned into Point of No Return, also three years later. There, as here, the remake is entirely superfluous if you’re familiar with the original, and does not fare well in any comparison. 

As you’d expect, the basic story is the same. Sisters Drew (Lowe) and May (Krause) have drifted apart over the years. But a shared passion for diving brings them back together for a trip on a remote stretch of coastline, to explore an underwater cave system. Initially, it goes well, until a rock slide leaves May with her leg pinned at the bottom of the sea. Her oxygen running out, it’s up to Drew to return to the surface, call for help, and bring down fresh tanks to keep her sister breathing. Naturally, it’s not as simple as that, with Drew having to overcome a slew of obstacles, from a car boot that won’t open, to equipment that malfunctions.

I’m quite hard-pushed to work out specifically why this had more or less the same ingredients as Breaking Surface, yet is so much less effective. It just feels like each element is a third- or fourth-generation photocopy of the original. The sisters, for example, are less appealing. There’s the same dynamic, in that May is the calm and collected one, while Drew is not suited to handling a crisis. But May comes off almost as robotic, while Drew is shrill and aggravating. There’s also a similar back story, involving a childhood incident. Here though, it seems to get in the way of the main plot, rather than enhancing it, with useful or interesting background. It sometimes feels like you need to know diving stuff too, and I don’t. 

To be fair, if I hadn’t seen the original, this would certainly score higher, perhaps around three stars. It’s still a good scenario, and I did like some elements, like the pointed note the sisters’ car is a rental. I just hope they got the damage waiver. But most of the changes, such as swapping out the chilliness of a Scandinavian fjord for the warmth of the Mediterranean (Malta, to be precise), seem pointless at best, and a detriment more often than not. By the end, which seems significantly more contrived in the original, I had an overwhelming urge to run off and watch Breaking Surface again. Though it did reaffirm my beliefs that caving = nope, diving = nope, and cave-diving = nope squared.

Dir: Maximilian Erlenwein
Star: Louisa Krause, Sophie Lowe

Av: The Hunt

  By

★½
“Puts the turkey in Turkish cinema”

The palpable sense of disappointment I felt when the end credits rolled, was all the more striking, given the decent way this opened. Ayse (Koç) is enjoying a shower after some afternoon delight with her lover, when there’s a thunderous knocking on the door. It’s her thoroughly disgruntled ex-husband. In the resulting fracas, the boyfriend is shot dead, and Ayse has to leap out of a window, and go on the run. Friends and family disown her, as the ancient concept of the honour killing still holds sway in contemporary Turkey. She can’t even go to the authorities, since the ex-husband is a policeman. 

Ayse attempts to head to the big city of Istanbul, more secular and offering a chance to hide out. This plan is derailed when a routine traffic stop leads to her capture. She manages to steal a police car, thanks to the cops underestimating her – you’ll find that is a bit of a theme. However, it crashes in fog and she’s forced on the run again, this time into the wilderness of the forest. She is pursued there by her former husband and various relatives, including a teenage cousin. They feel, to varying degrees that her actions have brought shame upon their family, and that she must pay for that, with her blood. Ayse, has other plans, especially after she wrests a weapon from one of the hunters. 

It’s the kind of thing we’ve seen quite often before: a woman being chased through the wilderness, before turning the tables on them. When done properly, it can be highly effective. Examples of the proper execution – pun intended – would include Revenge or Arisaka. This, on the other hand, manages to get just about everything wrong. Part of it may be down to an overseas audience not being aware of the honour concepts, something the makers here don’t bother to explain. That’s forgivable. After all, it wasn’t made for us. But there are any number of other flaws, such as the ease with which she can best everyone in hand-to-hand combat. Or the lengthy, almost entirely pointless scene where Ayse tries to bribe a bus-driver to take her to Istanbul. 

These pale entirely beside the ending, which is solely responsible for losing the film an entire star. For, in general, it looks decent, with some impressive cinematography, such as the drone shot that follows Ayse as she’s fleeing the apartment, and pans up to reveal the city. Despite its flaws, we were probably looking at ★★½. And then, we weren’t. I do not know what the director was trying to say with the ending. If I had to guess, something like “I have no idea how to wrap things up, and frankly, am getting bored with the entire endeavour, so I’m just going to roll the credits.” Almost makes me want to recommend watching this, purely for how bad the finish is. There’s certainly not much else to justify the experience. 

Dir: Emre Akay
Star: Billur Melis Koç, Ahmet Rifat Sungar, Yagiz Can Konyali, Adam Bay

Dangerous Waters

  By

★★
“Dangerously stupid.”

This was Ray Liotta’s last movie: he died during shooting. Cruel though it may be, I can’t help wondering if he died of embarrassment. Certainly, I note that his character never gets a proper send-off: while I must remain vague for spoiler purposes, you don’t see his face. Not that he’s in this much. A rambling conversation with the heroine is the bulk of it. But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. We begin with single mom Alma (Burrows) dragging unwilling teen daughter Rose (Rush) on a sailing trip from Florida to Barbados. The boat belongs to her new boyfriend, ex-cop Derek (Dane), and at first, things are pleasant, despite Rose’s obvious desire to be anywhere else but on the high seas.

She’s right to be concerned. A mysterious encounter in the middle of the night leaves one of the passengers dead, and the other two having to fend for themselves, on a badly crippled craft. Turns out, Derek wasn’t quite the above board law enforcement officer Alma thought. He was in cahoots with some very nasty people, in particular one individual known only as The Captain (Liotta). Surviving will require Rose to get on a liferaft, go to a desert island, get back on the liferaft, and finally get picked up by the boat belonging to The Captain. Fortunately, she is both the daughter of a deceased soldier, and has taken shooting lessons. Who better to take out a ship full of hardened criminals?

Yeah, that whirring sound are my eyes rolling. It’s all pretty dumb and largely implausible. I’m not sure what’s less credible: Rush as a teenager, or Burrows as a woman in her late thirties [Put it this way: I’d like to wish a happy 25th birthday in July to Saffron’s performance in Deep Blue Sea] Then there’s the plot, which wanders round in circles aimlessly, between sporadic bouts of action. I guess it gives the viewer plenty of time to try and figure out what Derek’s plan was supposed to be. Similarly, Rose swings between being an unbeatable bad-ass, and whimpering in the corner or unable to hold an oar. But since the movie opens with Rose telling her story to law enforcement, there’s no tension or threat to her. We know she’s going to survive. 

I will say, it looks slick, and the action is fairly well-staged, especially once we get to the boat. This is certainly watchable, though I almost dozed off during one of the longer liferaft sequences. It’s the story that’s the problem here, not least because the big surprises are little or no surprise at all. Maybe the unscheduled loss of Liotta, and the obvious rewrite required was a factor. However, that tragedy can only go so far in explaining the welter of problems with the story. It’s the kind of thing which might pass muster as a TV movie on a lower-tier cable channel. I was expecting more, and certainly, Liotta deserves better as a memorial. 

Dir: John Barr
Star: Odeya Rush, Eric Dane, Saffron Burrows, Ray Liotta

The Marsh King’s Daughter

  By

★★½
“Always protect your family.”

This begins with the young Helena, living deep in the woods with her mother and father, Jacob (Mendelsohn). He’s teaching her the ways of the forest, including hunting and the need to be ruthless, with the top priority expressed in the tagline above. However, things aren’t quite what they seem: it feels like it could be a century ago, yet the tranquil illusion is shattered when a lost stranger on an ATV rides up. Mom makes a break for freedom with Helena, for it seems this is actually a kidnapping which has gone on for a long time. Fast forward twenty years: Jacob is in prison, mom killed herself and Helena (Ridley) is working a dead-end job, but married to Stephen (Hedlund), and with a daughter, Marigold.

Then Jacob escapes custody while being transferred, and all hell breaks loose. For Helena has changed her identity, in an effort to disconnect from her past. Stephen is entirely unaware of his wife’s history, until the authorities show up on their doorstep. Helena is naturally concerned that her father is going to make contact, or worse. Inevitably, that’s exactly what happens, and she is going to have to dredge up those long-abandoned skills in order to live up to the standards ingrained in her, when she was living in the woods. It will also require her to return to her childhood haunt, for a confrontation with Jacob which has been several decades in the making.

I suspect the main problem is that we know where it’s going to go, almost from the moment we are told Jacob has broken out of jail. The film, however, insists on dallying around, having Helena’s paranoia ramp up in a middle act that loses all momentum, creeping around at night and hearing the flute-like music which her father used to play. Does this indicate he is near, or simply that the stress is triggering some kind of psychotic episode? To be honest, we don’t particularly care. I kinda lost much sympathy for her, after realizing she had hidden everything from Stephen. You’d think the fact she has more tats than a Maori chieftain might clue you in to something of a checkered past, but that’s apparently just me.

Still, Jacob looms over the entire film even when he is not physically present, since he has, understandably, been living rent-free in his daughter’s head. There is a seasoning of Stockholm syndrome here, in the way the father has impressed his personality on his daughter. Yet none of it is particularly engaging. We’re left just waiting for the face-off which we know is inevitable, where Helena has to decide how far she is willing to go, in order to protect Marigold. Is that further than Jacob is prepared to go, for what he believes is the best interests of his daughter? I feel the answer to that question should be more interesting than this bland exercise in wilderness abuse ends up becoming.

Dir: Neil Burger
Star: Daisy Ridley, Ben Mendelsohn, Gil Birmingham, Garrett Hedlund

Cascade

  By

★★
“Falls off.”

It’s kinda interesting to compare this to Mercy Falls. Both concern an ill-fated trip into a scenic wilderness – all trees and waterfalls – by a group of friends, which goes increasingly off the rails. The main difference is, in Mercy, the call was coming from inside the house, as it were. Here, the threat is definitely external. The target is four friends, just finished high school and about to enter the world at large. Jesse (Oulette) will work as a mechanic; his girlfriend Alex (Waisglass) wants to leave their small town and go to college, but hasn’t plucked up the courage to tell Jesse yet. Making matters more complex, her father is part of the Dark Saints, a biker gang and generally criminal enterprise. 

This matters, because the Dark Saints just lost a shipment of drugs, the plane carrying it having crashed in a remote region of a nearby national park. Their minions are on the hunt for it, but – what are the odds? – Alex and her friends are first to stumble across it. A discussion ensues about what to do, but it’s all rendered moot after they cross paths with the minions. Before you can say, “implausible plot line,” Jesse has broken his leg and he, plus another of the quartet, pregnant pal Em (Laflamme-Snow) have been captured by the bad guys. It’s up to Alex to figure out what to do, as the only member of the group left able to operate freely.

Which is fortunate, since she’s also the smartest of the people wandering in the woods, and it’s not even close. Let’s just say, pond life would likely rate second or third place among these people, and I’m including both the hikers and the minions in those rankings. Seeing her mental wheels spinning as she out-thinks and outmanoeuvres her enemies is one of the few pleasures this offers. But it’s like watching a grand master playing chess against a pigeon. The only genuine and credible threat is her Dad and the Dark Saints, and they don’t show up until the very end of proceedings. With Alex’s witless friends, dumb and/or unlikable, the ones in peril, the stakes here aren’t enough to engage the viewer either. 

I will say, the film does look half-decent, with Diego Guijarro’s cinematography popping nicely off the screen, and the Canadian backdrop is scenic. But too often, the film pulls its punches, whether it’s a character leaping off the waterfalls, depicted with them simply vanishing out of sight, or a pivotal car crash in which it appears no vehicles were actually harmed. This might as well be a TVM, with only the potty-mouths of some inhabitants meriting more than a PG rating. It’s all blandly innocuous, and despite Waisglass’s best efforts, it never gels. Things like Em’s pregnancy, for instance, feel like an afterthought, which goes nowhere and seems like nothing more than a cheap ploy to get audience sympathy. Memo to the film-makers: it didn’t work. 

Dir: Egidio Coccimiglio
Star: Sara Waisglass, Joel Oulette, Sadie Laflamme-Snow