NATURE'S GRAVE (2009)

[indianasmith]

This was on the New Releases shelf at hasting's this week, and it had Jim Caviezel (who played Jesus in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST) as its star, so I decided to give it a watch.


The plotline is simple.  A couple from Sydney whose marriage is crumbling in the wake of the wife's infidelity decide to go camping and surfing on a remote beach in Northern Australia with another couple in a last ditch effort to save their dying relationship. They arrive after dark, turn off the road (ignoring a NO TRESPASSING sign), and get lost in the brush between the highway and the beach.  They finally give up and camp where they are, and morning finds them only 100 yards from a beautiful, remote beach.  Both characters - Peter (Caviezel) and Carla (played by Claudia Karvan) are completely unlikable.  Carla is brittle, tense, angry, and absolutely hates nature.  She spends the whole movie begging to go home, or to a hotel, or to a nearby city.  You almost feel sorry for Peter, except he is such an insensitive jerk you get the feeling these two deserve each other.  Both of them show profound disrespect for nature - littering, cutting down a tree at the campsite for no reason whatsoever, smashing an eagle's egg, etc.  Peter drinks the whole time, and randomly fires his gun at whatever moves, while Carla sprays insecticide everywhere when she's not griping at Peter (sometimes she does both things at once!).
    Well, karma begins to set in about 30 minutes into the movie.  A huge shadowy beast begins trailing Peter through the water as he surfs.  The only other people camped on the beach seem to have disappeared.  And as one thing after another goes wrong, Carla and Peter are at each other's throats more and more.  And nature seems to be getting very, very angry at these two.

This is a decent suspense film, shot on location in Northern Australia.  I don't want to give away too much of the ending, but if you don't like either character that much (as I didn't), it will be pretty emotionally satisfying. 

And if there is one lesson this movie drives home with great intensity, it is this simple message:  DON'T SHOOT THE SEA COW!!!!

[BoyScoutKevin]

Never seen it, but Jim Caviezel has turned into one of my favorite actors. I especially liked him as the villain in "Deja Vu," and especially that tete-a-tete, he and Denzel Washington had, after Caviezel had been captured.

I also liked Caviezel as the hero in "The Count of Monte Cristo."

[Javakoala]

Isn't this a remake of a movie from the 70's?  I'll try to track down the movie's name, but it had essentially the same story.

Ah, something else to nag at my mind.