THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN (1995)

Not to be confused with The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Human Centipede, THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN is the delightful fictional story of two English cartographers (Hugh Grant and Ian McNeice) who, in 1917, travel to the small village of Ffynnon Garw (in Wales) to measure a large hill. The hill is a matter of great pride to the local residents who proudly boast that the hill is the “first mountain in Wales”. Grant and McNeice regretfully inform them that the hill must first measure taller than 1,000 feet before it can officially be declared a mountain. This sets off an stirring series of events that will change the lives those involved forever.

As far as the “simple life in a small country village” subgenre goes, TEWWUAHBCDAM is pretty good. It has a strong cast and a fantastic story idea, but at the end of the day, it’s still lacking. Mainly due to the shoehorned romantic subplot that seems extremely forced. It also doesn’t help that the female love interest (for Grant’s character) isn’t even introduced until 43 minutes into the movie! (Remember: the end credits start at 93 minutes.) Also, while Tara Fitzgerald is a fine actress, her character has very little to work with here.  It's almost like the romance subplot was tossed in at the last moment. TEWWUAHBCDAM would have been better if either...the romantic stuff was dropped completely and replaced with more of the funny adventures of the villagers trying to prevent the cartographers from leaving (which I though was the highlight of the film) or beefed up and introduced much earlier in the story. That complaint shouldn’t keep you from watching the film though. As it is, THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL BUT CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN is still a delightful little film that will brighten your day.

A few other things of note: (1) The standout performance by Kenneth Griffith as the local Reverend who got himself in the middle of everything. He was goddamn fantastic and stole every scene he was in. (2) The lack of screentime for Ian McNeice. He’s a great actor and his character was interesting. Not sure why he didn’t have a bigger role. (3) The landscape in this film was absolutely gorgeous. (4) There should totally be a remake of this film. Maybe with Martin Clunes and Ian McNeice as the two cartographers? That'd be funny for us Doc Martin fans.

NO ESCAPE (1994)

"...death is the only way out."

Ray Liotta is a military dude who murders his commanding officer.  He's sent to a top secret island prison for some unexplained reason.  There's like 700 dudes on this island.  Six-hundred of them are in the "bad" gang and the remainders in the "good" camp.  The bad guys live in the jungle and are lead by some fruity fellow with three bridge piercings.  The good guys live on a walled-in farm and follow The Father, played by Lance Henriksen.  As expected the good guys and the bad guys fight a lot and there's various attempts to escape the island.

I remember seeing NO ESCAPE back when it originally came out and only being mildly amused.  Watching it again now, for the first time in 20 years, I enjoyed the nostalgia of it, the filmmaking style, the quick pace, the strong cast, the pre-SAW torture collar and the island locations, but overall it's a pretty "Meh." movie.  Mainly thanks on the sheer amount of plot holes (there's too many to even list here), the horrible miscasting of the bad guy boss (he's completely non-threatening and there is absolutely no way he could keep 600 psychos in line...the filmmakers should have made Lance Henriksen the leader of the bad guys), the lack of any gritty violence (if these guys are the worse of the worse then this island would just be a non-stop Hell of raping, mutilation, perversion and twerking) or memorable action scenes (how could the producer behind ALIENS, TREMORS, THE TERMINATOR & T2, THE ABYSS and the future director of  GOLDENEYE and CASINO ROYALE not realize the importance of awesome, jaw-dropping action scenes???) and the unsatisfying ending (I'm not going to spoil it, but that ending was lame).  And it looks like audiences thought the same, because after debuting at the #1 box office position on 1,763 screens, NO ESCAPE quickly dropped off and didn't even make it's $20 million budget back!  Yikes.

Worth a watch for fans of 90's action films.  Would make an interesting double-feature with 1993's FORTRESS.  I'd love to see a remake or even a video game.