EL REY DE LA MONTANA (2007)

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DIRECTOR: GONZALO LOPEZ-GALLEGO

CINEMATOGRAPHER: JOSE DAVID MONTERO

WRITER: JAVIER GULLON & GONZALO LOPEZ-GALLEGO (screenplay)/JAVIER GULLON (story)

BUDGET: ?

GROSS: $418,026 (worldwide)

El Rey De La Montaña (King Of The Hill) begins with a man stopping to get gas. While his car fills up he goes to the bathroom. In the bathroom he meets an attractive woman and they have sex. I know, it sounds like a good thing right? Well, in this case it begins a chain of events that lead to him, and said woman, running through the woods being stalked by unknown snipers.

Who are these snipers and why are they after them? We don't know. Eventually we get a little info about what is going on, but it really is just cursory. And that's enough.

This is a thriller that gets its thrills from throwing these characters into a very scary situation and putting us there with them. We aren’t given more information than they are so until near the end of the movie we are just as scared and confused as them. Where do we run, how can we hide, what do we do? That is what creates the tension. And it works.

For awhile I thought that maybe we would never know who the snipers were or why they were doing what they were doing. And part of me was kinda hoping that was the case.

Often films spend the bulk of their time building questions and giving away very little, only to throw it all at you near the end. And when not done properly, this leads to disappointment when the explanation is bigger than the movie or when it seems to negate a lot of what we had seen throughout the film and looking back it feels like they were even hiding the clues from us and the big "surprise" was all that mattered.

However, in the final act of El Rey De La Montaña (King Of The Hill), we do get a look at it from the sniper's side - and while this threatened to diminish the movie for me, it ended up being alright. Just like the rest of the film that was simple and didn't rely on lots of back story or character development beyond what they go through in the moment, so too is the "sniper's story/explanation."

Once you see the film you will probably immediately recognize the scenario/story from a number of other films that have done it. And I would have to say that El Rey De La Montaña is the one that has done it best!