An exciting espionage thriller that decides to become a plodding, boring wilderness "adventure" after ten minutes
19 April 2005
When Dr Nils Ahlen develops a device that can capture and utilise the energy of sound he naturally becomes the target of the government, be it in the energy field or weapons development. Having convinced his employers of his discovery, Ahlen returns to his home to get his full files only to find that his wife and his partner have gone missing – along with information vital to the development of the technology. With the help of the local police (Inspector Peterson), Ahlen sets out after the two to prevent them getting the information into the hands of the Russians.

In the opening ten minutes of this film things look good – the tone is dark, the wartime plot looks like it will produce a slick and exciting conspiracy/chase thriller and I must admit I settled down for a good "romp". However, not long into the chase the film decides to dump all this silly stuff and becomes some sort of wilderness adventure instead. At this point I tried to stay with the film but it became too stodgy and uninteresting for its own good and the melodrama of the whole affair failed to engage me. The script is pretty talky and, without character development, it didn't keep me with it; instead it throws in wolves and vultures and elements of "savage" life but not in such a way that is fun or entertaining in any sense of the word.

The cast can't do much with it and they come off pretty clunky and wooden. McCallum and Warner have the hardest jobs as they try to lead the film but, from their performances I can only assume that they were as unconvinced and as bored by the whole thing as I was. Dawson and Wood have potentially interesting characters and Wood does have some good scenes but the film doesn't help her by developing those around her to support her emotions within her marriage. The direction is OK but the stock footage is far too obvious and obtrusive.

Overall this starts out well but then becomes a plodding adventure story in the snowy wilderness; near the end it tries to look at the emotions of Ahlen's marriage briefly but it doesn't spend the time on it that that thread deserved. The end result showed potential but the majority of it is boring and flat and produced a film that is watchable at points but mostly not really worth a look.
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