Heatstroke (2013)

Purely Joyful Movie!

best movie i've ever seen.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Paul takes his young daughter and mistress to a wild adventure in the desert to see the surroundings and observe different animal behavior. For some reason they must separate from Tally in order to reunite again later but Paul falls as a prey to a sort of hunters who he sees them taking the fangs from a rhinoceros. Fortunately Josie escapes unharmed and she is found by Tally but now the two must run from those who hunt them.Well, it was a good way to spend an hour and a half although the story is quite sad. I still like it and having in mind that it doesn't contain violence to the animals, is bearable. The action is little is more like a cat and mouse type we see more running then action scenes, maybe this is the reason for the low rating, oh, and yes the little girl is annoying but hey, she is just a teen in our days so she didn't make a mistake. So for an sad adventure tale or for the melancholic type of audience this one is just fine.

The kid Josie is a bad cliché of a rebellious bratty spoiled teenage girl. Her dad enables and encourages her behavior by refusing to be critical of her behavior. It is sickening to watch. This liberal attitude of not correcting bad behavior in children is epidemic in films today. It does help the writers develop conflict of course; the stupid decisions which are natural derivatives of liberal parenting philosophy assist the writers in putting characters in trouble. Being set in Africa, the scenery is great. I decided to watch this movie when I read it was set in Africa; that part of the movie does not disappoint. But there are scenes which detract from the film. Talley kills the man trying to kill her. Later she mutters to herself, I could have disabled him, I didn't have to kill him. And this is one of the men who murdered her lover. This is more idiotic liberalism, uncalled for. In point of fact, she was lucky she was not killed by the man, and she only killed him by accident during a struggle for the gun. But the writers felt the need to put some stupid leftist philosophy in the movie. In real life, if you try to avoid hurting your assailant very much you are likely to be overcome by him. Josie has a fit of anger and hits Talley in the back of the head with a rock because the water hole they found was bad. This is more gratuitous liberal behavior, playing the victim and blaming others for your bad luck.The teenage angst step mom dynamic is a major plot line in this film. You can tell how it is going to play out; they will get through some life changing harrowing experiences together and wind up bonding. If you can get past all that, it is not a bad film, but certainly not a great one

Not sure why all the terrible reviews. Sure, this is not your typical Stephen Dorf film, but the actors all did a great job -- portrayal of the average American family dealing with a disgruntled teenager in the aftermath of a divorce and an absent father wrapped up in his work, revealed through a (rather weak) attempt of the father to "man up" and be a dad. Sad, but after the mishap with the dad (mentioned in the description), the best thing that could have happened to this teenage female was what did happen -- to be alone with, and dependent upon, the adult female character. Although there are instances in which coincidence is way out of line with plausibility, the story line, overall, is believable. I did find it interesting that we did not see more animals, as we were taken through the wilds of South Africa. The adult female, though apparently out of her realm of expertise, seems quite capable, I was surprised that she was not portrayed as doing some basic survivalist things that even I would know to do. Overall a decent film, not too many boring moments.

No spoilers in this review, but a brief summary of my impressions about the film: The movie was better than I expected, and I was a bit surprised by the low 4.8 rating (at the time of writing) on IMDb.Granted, it's not a very good film, but it's not that bad either: The dialogue is OK and it avoids many of the narrative clichés you often see in low-budget films (even big-budget films as well), and the acting is (in general) more than decent enough (more about that later).Thumbs up to the screenwriters for at least attempting to add some depth to the film: At first you may get the impression that this is some sort of action-film, but it's more like a thriller with some underlying "family" drama (with focus on father/"stepmother"-daughter relationships).I was less enthusiastic about the pacing of the last half of the movie: I think the film could have been shortened a bit, to add more focus towards the end. I also felt that the foreign accent of Tally was a bit distracting, even though English was not the native language of her character (or the actress herself).Peter Stormare was, as usual, quite funny. It's almost over-the-top, but he somehow manages to sell the performance because it seems to fit his character.Maisie Williams is a young and very talented actress. Her character starts off as an annoying, bratty teen, but the turn of events help to bring her into a more sympathetic light (a lesser script could easily have made the character much more two-dimensional and clichéd). Kudos to Maisie for bringing her character to life, even though she didn't have that much material to work with.However, one reviewer here wrote that "she does not have much acting skill. ... Maisie mesmerizes the audience with her eyes. People mistaken it for acting".The reviewer couldn't be more wrong, in my opinion: Good acting is not only how you act or perform, it's about how you *RE*act. And Maisie's ability to communicate and express emotions via her eyes is one of the very reasons why she's so talented. She listens and reacts. Maisie's performances are also emotionally honest and "real", and it's not often I see these qualities in young actors in their first screen roles.Overall, I think this film passed the "watch clock" or "falling asleep" tests: In general, if a film manages to entertain me enough to avoid these things from happening, then it usually deserves at least 6/10. Heatstroke started of well, and although it started to slow down towards the end, it still left a positive impression.