Hey. Let me tell you a story. A story about a man surrounded by traitors who he thought were his friends. Being betrayed by everybody he was close to, betrayed by the institution, he had no choice but to do the unthinkable. This is his tale.
A strapping young lad named “Tarqi” had his afternoon free. Nothing to do. Nothing to see.
He decided he would relax. Maybe get some drawing done. Maybe continue writing that short story series he left off. Maybe he’d even play some of those Steam games that he hadn’t even opened yet.
But fate had another plan for him.
brrriiiiiiiiiiinngggg!!!
Is the way his phone would have rang if it were still the 20th century. But instead it chimed with battle music from Breath of Fire III. Tarqi looks at the phone. Its a friend of his.
“Hey.”
“You wanna see a movie later?”
‘Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm’ Tarqi thought in his mind. Today was his day to relax, you know? But hanging out with friends is also fun.
“What movie?” Tarqi finally asked.
“The Mountain Between Us.”
‘Idris Elba… the amazing actor who is always amazing… he’d make any movie worth watching.’ Tarqi thought.
“Sure, I’ll go.”
And his fate was sealed. He didn’t even dread it or run from it.
So Tarqi went to the theatre, purchased a ticket with actual money, and joined a group of his friends in the same row.
A good time ready to be had.
DISCLAIMER: I’ve seen this movie once and it was many months before the time of me writing this review. If I get plot points of this movie wrong I don’t care because I refuse to waste any more time and/or money watching that film and my inaccurate description of the events is probably better than what actually happened anyway.
The basic premise of this movie is that some flight is cancelled because weather issues. But, ya boy Idris is a surgeon and he needs to make it to an operation tomorrow morning, so he’s pleading and arguing with the staff. Then there’s yet another woman played by who-knows-who that needs to catch the flight for who-knows-why (if you can’t already tell, I cared so little about this woman that I don’t even remember what she looks like. And I’m happy about that fact). Eventually, the woman offered him a solution. She knows a guy who can fly them to where they need to go because apparently they have the exact same destination???
Idris Elba turns down this offer more than once (whether its before or after he sees the rinky dink plane, I don’t know). But somehow she managed to convince him to join in on this little ride.
Much like me Tarqi purchasing that ticket, he had sealed his fate without even knowing it.
Guess what happens next. The very storm that caused the flight to be cancelled crashed their plane and they’re stranded in the
(you guessed it)
mountains.
What follows is just a sequence of hair pulling events where Idris has rational ideas about surviving but has to expend waste food, water, and energy to keep the woman alive because she’s injured, stupid and reckless. Luckily, he doesn’t have to do anything for the dog since I guess it photosynthesises considering that you never see it eat food or drink water or show any signs of distress.
To add lemon juice to the open wound, the two survivors who have as much chemistry as blood and snake venom develop what I imagine the writers of this movie thought was a romance. What this leads to is what I whole-heartedly believe to be the most uncomfortable sex scene in cinematic history. And I’ve seen Birdemic.
Sex scenes are generally uncomfortable to watch, but this exceeded the bounds of uncomfortable. I felt like I had been assaulted after that scene.
What follows is more of the same: Idris Elba wasting his time and energy keeping the girl safe. That is until Idris steps on a bear trap. I don’t remember exactly but I’m pretty sure it was her fault.
She then has to go and get help. I guess at this point they were close to some sort of civilisation (which makes sense because of the bear trap). She took some time to finally flag someone down at this lumber place and I knew in my heart that Idris died and I was mad.
As it turns out, he didn’t die. He was saved. They both survived. A happy ending.
And yet, the movie was god awful.
Pepperfaced 