Beyond the Reach

Michael Douglas chews the spectacular desert scenery in this silly, enjoyable survival thriller.

Ultimately, the take-away from "Beyond the Reach" is this: Don't go into the desert with a guy in a blazer. Even if he offers you a martini.

Watching Douglas behave like a narcissistic scumbag is an absolute pleasure, one in which viewers of action-adventure "Beyond the Reach" can happily indulge.

A deadly, desert-set game of cat and mouse that is tired and beyond plausibility.

"Beyond the Reach" is a grueling, unsatisfying thriller that fails the logic test in spectacular ways.

While Léonetti's film is never less than ridiculous, it forgets to also be fun.

As it stands, it's simply a relentlessly brutal chase through a parched landscape that does little more than remind us that California is in the midst of its worst drought in something like six centuries.

Things go way off track at the end, but the always game Douglas gleefully chews up the scenery and has a riot delivering some jaw-droppingly bad lines. This is a film you need to see with a big, lusty audience so you can yell at the screen at the end.

Gordon Gekko in the desert Southwest. There's really no other way to describe this sparse but ultimately rather silly B-movie thriller.

Elevated by its sense of humor, which is connected to its political conscience: Dressed like Donald Rumsfeld playing cowboy, in a black vest, blue shirt and big hat, Michael Douglas finds economic reasons to justify his decision to commit murder.