Frontiers

This film's strength ended up being it's major weakness: it's unflinching violence. At some indefinable point, well into the second half, the plot went from intriguing, fun and somewhat horrifying, to stale and predictable and cheesy in about as much time as it takes to snap an Achille's heel with a pair of giant forceps.

It basically became a version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" set in the French countryside, although about ten times bloodier. But the movie is not all bad, most of the acting is top-notch and there are several great chase scenes between the young thieves and the weird Nazi clan. Unfortunately the last twenty minutes were just plain predictable and seemed to rely on the old horror/revenge/gore film paradox, whereby we are supposed to believe what is happening in the film with the strictest of logic but at the same time everything that transpires seems cartoonish and full of logic holes. Somehow, just somehow, we just have to believe that our "heroine" will make it through, no matter what the odds. Schwarzenegger would be proud.

And the last five or ten minutes were just intolerable, with the blood and muck drenched heroine shaking and barely able to walk from shock (kudos for attempting to get that close to reality), after being beaten severely by a rifle butt and the hands of several very well-built men, yet still somehow, miraculously,survives that and a fierce gun battle against two women, with one even packing a machine-gun. All for the sake of what? To end their movie on the most over-used cliche in film history? "The good guy must prevail." Although they did tack on a swell little irony with her getting caught by the police at a roadblock. A little too late to save the film for me.

Enjoyed the set up, was mildly intrigued by the weird Nazi clan, and was totally let down by the ending. All the hinting at the malformed children in the mine shaft ended up being a total let down as well. What could have been a very interesting plot device, similar to what was used in a far better film, End of the Line, was all lost here for a bland and painfully rhapsodic revenge trope.