A Lonely Place to Die (4 Stars)

I'd change one letter in the film's title. "A Lovely Place to Die" would be fitting. With the exception of the town scenes, the film was made in the area between Glen Coe and Fort William, the most attractive scenery on Earth, in my humble opinion. Scotland's highest mountains are by the sea, giving amazing backdrops. It's true, Scotland's mountains aren't as high as the mountains in central Europe, but where else can you climb a mountain starting at zero meters above sea level?

I have holiday photos that closely match this view. The forest on the right of the picture is still the same shape as it was in the 1980's. I was probably walking across the ridge in the middle of the photo. That brings back memories. I wasn't a mountain climber, I was a hiker. The west side of Ben Nevis has a path to the peak that isn't steep and can be easily climbed by anyone with average fitness.

At first glance the film looks like the story of a mountain climbing disaster. That's what I expected when I picked up the film from the bargain bin of a store in Stuttgart. That isn't the case.

Five friends (three men, two women) are in the Scottish Highlands for mountain climbing. When they're hiking towards a peak they find Anna, an eight-year-old Serbian girl, trapped in a hole. They free her and decide to take her back to the nearest town. They have no way of communicating with her to find out why she's there. The viewers soon find out. She's the daughter of a Serbian warlord who's been kidnapped and held to ransom. She was being kept in a secure place while the kidnappers were waiting for the payment of six million Euros.

The kidnappers discover that Anna is missing and hunt down the hikers. Only two survive the journey to the town, but that isn't the end. They're caught in the middle of a battle between the kidnappers and Serbian soldiers, while the Beltane festival is being celebrated in the streets around them.

This is an exciting action film. It's slightly difficult to believe that young hikers could survive while being hunted by trained soldiers, but I can accept it in the context of fiction. Melissa George is the only actress in the film that I know, and she's as excellent as always. Other reviewers criticise the plot, and I have to agree with them, but I've given it a high rating for the scenery alone.

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