VOD Review: Landmine Goes Click (2015)

"This one sure threw us for a loop."

*There were a handful of movies in 2015 that we wanted to review, but didn't get to, so we're just going to go ahead and give them the Quick Review treatment now. We'll keep it short and sweet.

A solid Indie Thriller, Landmine Goes Click suffers from exactly what makes it such a compelling watch: its improbable and crazy paradigm shift.

It mostly worked, and then kinda didn't, but at the very least, this movie shook up Genre conventions and gave us something very different to chew on and digest. That's something at least.

*Beware, there are spoilers below!

Three American tourists -Daniel, Alicia, and Chris- are hiking through the rural backwoods of Georgia (in Russia, not the U.S. State), when Chris steps on a landmine, which makes it go click. If he steps off of the landmine, it will go boom, and he will explode into a thousand little pieces, so he decides not to move, or even breathe all that much.

"HEY, ASSHOLES, CUT THE ROMANCE, I'M STANDING ON A LANDMINE HERE!"

As bad as the situation is, things get worse when a skeevy Georgian local named Ilya comes along (with massive hunting dog and rifle in tow), and proceeds to terrorize the group of friends, both mentally and sexually.

THEY SURE ARE FRIENDLY OVER THERE IN GEORGIA.

Now, there's a lot more that happens in between all of that, but to break it all down here would spoil things for you, and what's the point of watching something if it's already been spoiled for you? What we will say is that there's a lot of rape and sexual abuse that goes on throughout, and things take a 180 degree turn towards the end, where even more fucked up things happen.

It's a twisted little movie, to say the least.

DUDE, SHE'S LIKE 16. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?

Landmine Goes Click began with an interesting premise, and started out strong, firmly holding our attention, but then it devolved into something... quite unexpected. There's a plot twist that occurs about an hour in that changes the movie in a way that still has us a bit vexed; we expected the whole thing to be an intense Survival Thriller, which it was for its first hour, and it was a bit of a surprise to see it switch gears to flat out Revenge for its closing act.

It was a pretty intense and engaging watch overall though.

THIS PICTURE LEAVES ME AT A LOSS FOR WITTY COMMENTARY.

Now, that plot twist, and the way that it's executed, may well be what made the movie so good in some people's eyes, and we can see that; revenge was coming, and it was well-warranted. The way that said revenge was carried out though didn't make much sense to us.

***BEWARE ENDING SPOILERS!!!***
After what Ilya did to Alicia, it felt perfectly natural for Chris to seek the guy out, and want him dead. Why Ilya left him alive is beyond us (he should have killed them both, and been done with it), but he was alive, and therefore, deserved his revenge. Why Chris took that revenge on the guy's wife and daughter though... Sure, he wanted Ilya to feel as terrified and helpless as he had made him feel earlier, but Russian roulette? And he didn't once say "Hey, your scumbag husband raped and killed someone I love, so I'm here to kill him for it." No, he got all clever with things, and made it into a complicated mess where he ended up becoming as much of a scumbag as Ilya was.

And while we're in spoiler territory... the whole thing with his friend setting up such an elaborate ruse with the landmine just felt silly.
***END OF SPOILERS***

LOVE TRIANGLES NEVER END WELL.

The movie also drags a bit in the early going, in which not a lot happens other than talking. Once things do pick up with the introduction of Ilya, the movie becomes one long, drawn-out sexual assault, so it may be a tough watch for some people.

PAVEL CRAWLED ALONG WITH HER, DETERMINED TO NOT LET THAT HUMAN BITCH STEAL HIS BEST MOVE.

Hell hath no fury like a loving boyfriend cucked. Also,if you want to go hiking somewhere, choose anywhere but Russia.

IT IS BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY THOUGH...

Landmine Goes Click is a solid Survival/Revenge Thriller that contains plenty of intense and uncomfortable material, and a shocking end that left us saying "damn!" The problem is that so many of the plot elements, and the way that they developed, felt wrong and untrue, that it didn't quite affect us like it could have.

It's a good movie (if flawed), and since it's available to stream for free (if you are an Amazon Prime member), it's definitely worthy of 90-minutes of your time. *If you're not already a member, then join HERE. It's totally worth it.

C

Landmine Goes Click is available now on VOD.

Spencer Locke can make our landmine go click any day.