Welcome back to Movie Recap. Today I'm gonna show you a 2014 American thriller film called,
Beyond the Reach. Spoilers ahead. Sit back, relax and enjoy the video.
The movie begins with a man named Ben, walking half-naked on the desert under the heat of the
firing sun. His lips are dry as if they never meet with water and his skin cries out for shadow
to prevent itself from burn. Panting, he tries to walk and searches but before he could even
step further, Ben wakes up from his horrifying nightmare that he never knows he would experience.
In the morning of a sunny day in the desert, Ben walks out of their house made of cargo ship
container and takes a step towards his girlfriend who is standing few meters from the house.
With a heavy heart, Ben’s girlfriend is sad to leave him alone in the desert as
she is about to go to Colorado after she gets accepted for a swimming scholarship.
Before she leaves, Ben gives him a firing weapon as his gift and it means special to him.
On one lucky day, Ben gets a call from a sheriff and offers him to track down
an endangered bighorn sheep in the desert. After receiving the offer,
Ben went to the sheriff’s station and meets the tycoon named Madec. The tycoon
reaches out to the sheriff about whom he can delegate the haunting of the bighorn sheep,
which leads the sheriff into contacting Ben. Ben and Madec exchange their names and the
tycoon is amazed by how the sheriff describes Ben as one of the best trackers in the desert.
Without a doubt from the sheriff’s judgment, Madec offers Ben a big amount of cash in exchange
of their hunting. The amount is big enough that it stunts Ben for a while, but without a second
thought and knowing that he has his best ability to do the job that the tycoon wants,
he immediately accepted the offer. After they receive the permission to hunt, Ben rides Madec’s
chunky terrain vehicle and they both drive to part of the Mojave Desert that is miles away.
In the middle of the road where the roaring of the terrain vehicle plays like a music, both
men exchange conversion and Ben introduces his girlfriend to Madec when the old man sees the guy
looking at his girlfriend picture in his wallet. Once they arrive at the station where they can
start haunting, Madec parks his terrain vehicle and they get off to wander under the heat. Ben
and Madec carries their long and gigantic firing weapon as they trace their way around the desert.
When they reach spot for practicing how to fire a weapon, Madec takes his firing weapon off his
shoulder, clutches it, and fires consecutively to shoot the two old television that are sitting few
meters from their place. Ben tells the old man that the noises that he makes may scare off off
the bighorn sheep that they are haunting and this may cause them to run away, but
Madec confidently sways the guy’s preaching and continues to walk away from their starting point.
Minutes that turn into hours, Ben and Madec above one of the giant rocks that is placed
behind wide and tall rock formations. Using his angles spotting scope, Ben angles his head
up and scans the area above the tall rock formations to see any signs of movement.
Beside him is Madec, who uses his monocular scope attached above his giant firing weapon.
Both of them moves their head and continuously scans the wide area when suddenly, a shadow of
an unknown figure shows up behind the lights of the sun and captures the sight of the old man.
Without any deliberation, Madec shoots the moving figure and excitingly pats Ben’s shoulder and
stands to go above the rocks and Ben follows him. When Madec reaches the top, he sees the figure
that he shots just a few seconds ago lying behind the giant rock. When he gets near,
Madec shouts in horror because it is not the bighorn sheep that he expects to see,
but a man lying on the sandy ground and is about to lose his life. Ben’s eyes dilated when he hears
the old man cries out, so he runs to see what he finds and the same horror strikes him when he sees
that the man that Madec shots is his long-time friend and a known explorer of mineral deposits,
Charlie. Ben tries to save his life, but he fails and to his hope, he says to Madec that
they should bring him to the hospital and the old man complies by giving him his car keys.
As soon as the keys land on his palm, Ben hurriedly goes down and runs as fast as he
can towards the terrain vehicle, lifts in, and maneuvers to the direction where Madec
and Charlies’ lifeless body awaits. On the top of the rocks where Madec remains with the
man lying with his own blood, desperate and horror surround him. The old man is
in terror that this accident can ruin his reputation and he cannot let that happen.
Pulling all the energy he has loss when he sees the body minutes ago,
Madec blankly stares at body, then his eyes travel to Ben’s firing weapon that is lying near Charlie.
Madec firmly stands up, walk towards the firing weapon, picks it up, and shoots it to Charlie’s
body. When Ben arrives, he is puzzled by the old man’s questionable act. Madec explains that he has
to shoot one of Ben’s loads inside Charlie’s body to make up a story of who is the actual killer.
Madec argues that his reputation is necessary to keep at its clean state,
so he offers that he will sponsor Ben’s college course and a job worth $300,000 annually in
exchange of helping the old man cover up the crime. Both men shake their hand as a
sign of agreeing to Madec’s deal before they put Charlie’s body beneath the compiled large rocks.
When they go down to get inside the terrain vehicle, Ben secretly picks his emergency
transponder at the back seat of the car, but he gets startled when Madec sees what he is
planning to do. The old man furiously points his firing weapon to Ben and instructs him to
throw the emergency transponder. After throwing the transponder, Madec then commands Ben to put
off his clothes and forces him to wander in the desert under the deadly flame of the sun.
Madec makes sure that he will go after Ben and watches him gradually die of heat and hunger,
this will serve as his punishment to the guy who breaks their agreement.
Wearing only his boxer shorts, Ben starts to wander away from the old man. His aches from the
flames of the ground and his skin starts to feel the fire coming from the sky. As he walks away,
Madec uses his binocular telescope to see where Ben is heading. To make sure that his reputation
will remain at its clean state, Madec creates a story that tells how Ben goes ballistic,
shots Charlie, and wanders off alone. When the guy tries to hide behind the tall rocks,
Madec immediately bring his terrain vehicle to life and goes after Ben.
In his try to escape, Ben gets his foot cut by a rock and it even adds to his fatal situation.
In spite of his whimper, Ben sees a small entrance in the rocks, so he hurriedly enters inside the
small tunnel, when he reaches its wooden cover, he opens it and he enters inside; it
turns out that it is Charlie’s subterranean lair. Ben searches the area to get things that can be
beneficial to his situation; he wears Charlie’s pants and his old brown boots. As he continues
to scan the lair, Ben’s eyes dart towards the pictures of Charlie’s wife plastered on the wall.
Ben steps his feet towards the wall, waiting for its surprise.
When he gets closer, Ben sees a treasure map in the middle of the pictures, knowing that
it might give Ben anything, he pulls off the treasure map and hides it inside his pants.
On the other hand, Madec loss Ben so he continuously scans for him using his binocular
scope. His head turns a hundred degrees until he finds a smoke coming out of a small wooden door
that covers a tunnel. He suspects that Ben stays inside so he maneuvers towards the spotted area.
Once he arrives, Madec gets his firing weapon with him and slowly opens the other entrance door.
The creak sound that the door makes alarm Ben of Madec’s presence so he
immediately goes back to the small tunnel. Madec follows his gut that Ben is just around
the corner, so he scans the lair. Before his eyes could get further, a box containing several
explosives capture his sight. Madec grabs the box and he take two pieces and light them up
and throws them outside the wooden cover where Ben hides. When the explosive weapons are about
to hit its explosive state, Ben manages to run through the door where Madec exits. In
a synchrony of Ben’s deafening shout, Charlie’s subterranean lair explodes in a blink of an eye.
Outside the unrecognizable lair, Madec stands and watches Ben hilariously laughing beside the
giant rock. The guy tries to outsmart the old man by telling him that it is hard to
cover up the explosion, but Madec simply adds the scenario to his make-up story that Ben
explodes the lair which makes Ben lose his laugh. Madec then threatens Ben to take his boots off
and exposes once again his bloody foot. Ben will also take his pants off, but Madec let
him keep it up to make the guy look ballistic, consistent to his story. After that, he lets Ben
wander again beneath the deadly flames of the sun. Ben’s lips get drier, like a dead leaf falling off
from a branch. As his skin burns from the heat, it forms a red scale-like patches,
as if its surface layer peels off from his body. As his eyes gaze on the horizon, it seems like it
is a never-ending journey of hell. But what gives him hope is the treasure map that he carries from
the subterranean lair. So, he slowly hides from corners, put his hand on his pants and opens
the map that might help him to survive. His first target is the giant “x” mark on the treasure map.
Ben traces the direction until he finds a crossed wood that forms the letter “x”, laying on the
ground. Ben grabs the wood and put it on the side before he uses his hands to dig the sandy layer.
There, he finds a green treasure box which contains the pictures of Charlie’s wife,
marbles with different colors, and a slingshot. Ben leaves the first two items and he only carries
with him the slingshot. Next, he finds the second treasure, which is located only a few
steps from the first treasure. There, Ben sees the tip of a gallon peaking above the ground.
He hurriedly dugs again and joy envelopes his system when he sees that it is a white gallon
containing a water. But before he drinks it, Ben hides behind the rocks to make sure that
Madec will not see him or the giant gallon. When he reaches a spot, Ben opens the lid,
puts it on his dried lips and swallow the water that he has been longing for hours.
Every drop feels like hope that refreshes his dried lips and penetrates to the bones of his
soul. Yet before he even gulps the whole thing, Ben startles when the gallon explodes from the
firing weapon of Madec. The remaining water that could hydrate the poor guy gets splash
on the sandy ground and Madec fires three times to make sure that it will serve no use to Ben.
The poor guy helplessly wanders again off the desert. His remaining energy feels like slowly
evaporating from the heat of the deadly sun. His lips turn pale and his eyes cannot even see what
future it has for him. Giving his final energy, Ben lays as his body faces the rock and sandy
ground. Madec drives his terrain vehicle and stops a few meters from Ben’s seemingly lifeless body.
To make sure that the guys is not breathing anymore, Madec shoots the ground near Ben to
see if he startles, but he sees no response. He takes another shot on the other side of
the ground and the final shot, but the he receives the same response. When he
concludes to himself that Ben is dead, Madec rides in his wheels and drives away from Ben.
While lying on the ground and hears the shots coming from the old man,
mesmerizes the moment that he has with his girlfriend before. A tear falls from his eye
when Ben recalls the moment when his girlfriend and him exchanges their intimate conversion in
the hidden grotto of the desert where they used to swim. When he hears that the terrain vehicle
drives away from him, Ben stands up and climbs on the rocks towards the entrance of the grotto.
On one end, Madec parks his vehicle when he sees Ben’s figure climbing from afar. Knowing that his
conclusion is wrong, Madec angrily picks his firing weapon and uses its monocular scope to
target Ben. His first shot misses Ben and this alarms the guy to climb faster. Once Ben gets
inside the grotto, he screams of frustration when he sees that the water that they used to
swim dries up. Ben has no choice but to stay inside the grotto and Madec also stays outside
until both of them reach the night. Using the light from his terrain vehicle, Madec watches any
movement that might appear from the grotto, but his guard is put on hold when Madec needs to pee.
He turns his back to the grotto and unzip his pants to unload; this moment gives Ben
the opportunity to get out of the grotto and silently opens the door of the terrain vehicle
to get a jacket. When Madec finishes, he faces the grotto again, so Ben silently pushes the door
but he fails to lock it. When the old man learns that the door of his vehicle is slightly open,
he immediately scans around and puts up a fire to Ben. Next, he throws an explosive weapon, but
Ben manages to run away, picks up a rock and put it on a band of his slingshot and shoots Madec,
which leaves the old guy temporarily unconscious. The next morning, Ben ties Madec with a rope,
drives him back in the town and reports his case to the sheriff. Madec requests to have a phone
call and board a helicopter to escape. Ben runs furiously to prevent the old man from escaping,
but Madec successfully rides the helicopter and travels away.
Ben goes to his girlfriend and stays with her. When the night comes and both of them sleep, Ben’s
horrifying experience in the desert appears in his dream and it wakes him up panting. Little did he
know, Madec sits in the corner of their room, carrying his long firing weapon. He confidently
stands up, mocks Ben and points his weapon to him, but before Madec fires, Ben’s girlfriend
shoots him first using the firing weapon that he gives, yet she drops it out of fear.
The movie ends with the deafening sound coming from the firing weapon numbs Madec’s
body and this gives Ben the time to pick up the little gun and takes the old man’s life away.