Best movie of this year hands down!

Just perfect...

I wanted to but couldn't!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

It's always fun to watch unsuspecting travellers encounter the horrors of the back-roads, so I was rather looking forward to King of The Hill. We follow Quim, on a mission to get back together with his girlfriend but put a little off track when an impromptu gas station tryst with a mysterious lady ends in her stealing his wallet. They meet again, but not before both have come under fire from a sniper, and the movie proceeds with the two of them trying to evade their unseen antagonists. Director Gonzalo Lopez Galego keeps things tight and mysterious for much of the time, concentrating on pace over character and attractive visuals and periodically jolting the viewers with short sharp bursts of action, skilfully turning the heat up moment by moment. The mountainous setting, trees, slopes and blue sky are well captured by the gorgeous cinematography of Jose David Montero, a picturesque setting at interesting odds with the impersonal menace that lurks within. Happily, the setting isn't just used for prettiness but excitement too, with rivers, trees, pitfalls and bushes all obstacles to navigate, there's an adventurous spirit to goings on that takes the film closer to classics like Deliverance than the more clichéd back-woods nastiness that tend to dominate films of this type. Stars Leonardo Sbaraglia and 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.

This is a thriller about a young man (Leonardo Sparaglia) and a young woman (Maria Valverde) whose cars break down in the middle of a mountainous Spanish wilderness. They had bumped into each other briefly, so to speak, in a gasoline station rest room, but they're otherwise strangers. They are both lost.They find themselves hunted by mysterious figures with rifles equipped with telescopic sights. And do those bullets make a racket on their arrival.In Valverde's car they drive quickly away from the area where the bullets kept popping around them until they reach a dilapidated bar. The break in and Valverde is attending to Sparaglia's wound when two cops drive up, search them, and demand that they be taken to the scene of this so-called ambush. The two cops find the story believable but at a price.Sparaglia and Valverde barely escape. Now without cars, they stumble through the damp woods and yellowed poplars, try to cross surging rivers, fall into pits, and do the usual things that pursued people in the wilderness do.The movie is full of clichés. Let me mention a few without dwelling on them. (1) There are myriad close ups of sweating and terrified faces. (2) The camera wobbles as if it's had too many Anise del Monos. (3) Why did the fleeing couple decide to stop at a bar where it was obvious the hand of man had never set foot for at least twenty years? (4) When the two hostile cops accost the couple at the bar, why do they think the trembling couple are lying? Instead of asking if the couple had broken in, why didn't they ask to see Sparaglia's bleeding leg wound? (5) One glance at the cops and we know they are there for only two reasons -- to provide a sense of false hope and to be killed. (6) A cop is shot outside his car, within which the young couple of imprisoned, so why does he whirl about and aim his pistol at THEM? (7) Why did the two cops force the couple to take them back to the scene of the ambush in the first place? (8) When the second cop is popped, why don't they grab his pistol before scurrying off into the woods? (9) When escaping from a sniper, why not drive away in a car, even if it has a flat tire -- and to hell with the rim? (10) Why, when Valverde is trapped in a small pit and Sparaglia is out looking for a stick to pull her up with, and they both know that snipers are in the vicinity hunting them with a dog -- does she repeatedly shout his name at the top of her lungs? And what an unAmerican name it is -- "Quim." We can only be thankful than en Español it's pronounced "Keem." (11) The photography is in fashionable high contrast and draws colors from the ghoulish green area of the palette.That gets the bad stuff pretty much out of the way. If the first two thirds of the film are exactly what you'd expect in this trashy genre, the same can't be said for the last third.There is, for instance, no dead body that leaps back to life at an awkward moment, which is a refreshing change. I've been praying that, once dead, they stayed dead.And -- I won't spoil this, but the heavies are not what you'd anticipate -- no skinheaded clowns in black leather with barbed wire tattoos across their chests. Nobody wearing a hockey mask or disguised as Karl Rove. Just a couple of empty headed refugees from a Middle School taking part in a kind of scavenger hunt in which everybody loses. And there are unexpected twists I won't get into.The acting doesn't have to be particularly good in a movie that consists chiefly of people stumbling through the bushes or sneering at one another -- and it ISN'T particularly good -- but Sparaglia is believable as the young man scared spitless, and Valverde has great big moo cow eyes and an aquiline nose that falls just short of beautiful.At the close, the hunting dog moseys up to the survivor and nuzzles him. I was glad to see that. There is nothing like the love of a good dog. I don't mean carnal love, of course, but fellowship, what the Greeks called "philia." A dog is a man's best friend. They're easy to read. You can tell when a dog likes you because he wags his tail, smiles, lets his tongue hang out, and drools. CATS never do that. Cats are too self contained. They're uncanny and know a lot more than they're letting on. If you and your cat traded sizes, your cat would eat you. Would your dog do that? No. No, your dog would not. Never trust a cat. There's a lot of tension in this film, almost in spite of the stereotypes that are splashed all over the screen.

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.

Wow !!! I am still astonished by this superb flick. Very different from what we can see else where. We of course think of Severance, Deliverance, Open Season and some other movies released in theatres since some years; movies about human beings in face of the rude wilderness.Spain usually gives us pretty good surprises; unfortunately, I do not remember all the titles...I am better comfortable with french, American and British cinema. Let's be fair, Spanish directors seem to be very free and inventive with what they want to shoot. No pressure from the producers.What's very interesting in that feature is that it doesn't focus only on the lead characters but, after two third of the film, also on the hunters. And after seeing the film, we wonder, ask ourselves about the "bad guys". Very few things are explained. And that's entertaining, exciting at the most. This kind of film stays inside of you for a long while.The only thing on what I could argue is about the wound of the "hero". At the beginning of the film, he is hit by a bullet at the thigh and near the end, he runs like a rabbit !!!But if you forget it, it's really a great picture. Run for it!!!