The King of the Hill (2008)

Truly the worst movie I've ever seen in a theater

Boring

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Made in 2007 this Spanish film is one that went under the radar which was a shame. It is all about a man imaginatively called 'Quim' - pronounced 'Keem' but still a cracking name. He is off to meet his ex girlfriend and try to put back his failed relationship back together, when he stops to fill up his car with petrol. There he has an encounter with a young and very light fingered young lady. He then heads off up this lonely mountain road.Then out of the blue he gets shot at - despite owning a Volvo (with an NCAP rating of 4 I believe) he still gets hit. Only after he tries to leave does he realise what real trouble he is in.Now there are a few plot holes here or rather some loose ends that I have only really realised on reflection. The plot is basic but the reveal or should I say reveals are good enough to prompt more than at least a couple of raised eyebrows. Good performances all round too; please note this is not a horror in the sense of blood and gore but more of a psychological thriller type. In Spanish with good sub titles - a film for those who really do like their films to be off the beaten track.

Maria Valverde make for a sympathetic pairing, wisely the film doesn't stop to long to give them a relationship but they have a certain mild chemistry that makes their bond under adversity a compelling one. For around two thirds or so of its length King of The Hill is rather great, hardly earth shattering in its events or approach but sufficiently well handled that it really stands out, unfortunately it doesn't end the same way. Like most films of its mysterious ilk, there's a "big reveal" here, and it's deeply ill-advised, an attempt at sombre significance that flops hard. A turn in events that would be unlikely and fairly tricky to pull off even if it were a significant part of the film from the start, here the film expects us to just buy the plot turn and then continues in the same uncompromising vein as before. To say much about why it doesn't work would be going into spoiler territory and since other have enjoyed this much more than I and not been troubled by the finale I won't divulge events, but for me it was daft verging on laughable, it not only took all the wind out of the film's sails but also rather tainted what had gone before. A saddening turn of events, as I wanted to dig this one and it came close to being a winner, but I can only go by my final impression, which was one of disappointment. A 5/10 then, even though for a fair amount of the runtime this is more like a high 7.

Typical of those so called "genre movies": a (very) thin concept and a lot of confidence from the director in his ability to pull up a good suspense/horror/whatever experience.Actually the locations are great in The King of the Hill, and the camera seems to do whatever it takes to create some tension. So for the first 30 minutes there's a kind of provisional suspense developing. Then, once the story has run out of fuel, it gets boring, and even more boring as it switches to the hunter's point of view (a very dumb attempt at stretching the flimsy storyline even further).Why they ever bothered to make a movie out of this scribbled one-line screenplay would be a mystery if gruesomeness alone was not a marketable value for some apparently dumb and bored teen audience.

Great film. It has been released in France now, in Spanish of course with French subtitles, but that's OK because I speak some Spanish and read French well. It is just all very well done, very creepy. There are a few unexplained moments, like who turned on the big road machine? Who is it that shoots the man in the leg (do we see him or not--I have to see it again). Who is the man he runs down, and why did he point his rifle? Is it the same dog with him? Why are the police so weird? And finally, exactly what happened (earlier, before the film time) between the younger hunter and the woman? Whose car does she have? Well, these are just a few questions. Maybe the film deliberately doesn't answer them. There seems to be a spate of films where the bad guys are teenage boys (for example, Michael Haneke's Funny Games US, which I walked out of two-thirds of the way through because I just couldn't take any more--probably what MH was hoping for!) without consciences--sociopaths, I suppose, but blond seemingly innocent sociopaths. What does this say (aside from watch out for innocent-looking blond teenage boys)? Anyway, everything about the film is great: the acting, the setting, the camera work, the music, the kind-of sick satisfaction at the end. It really works. Bravo.