Scary thriller is rock-steady in delivering the action goods

Charlize Theron is one of the few actresses who can play “serious”, dramatic roles as well as kick-butt action heroines. In Apex, a brutal survival thriller, her charisma and athleticism are once again on full display.

Theron plays Sasha, an American rock climber who revels in the extreme sport of scaling vertigo-inducing cliffs that would give anyone with even a moderate fear of heights the shivers. Her adrenalin-junkie nature is brought home in the stomach-churning opening scene when Sasha wakes up in a tent, opens the flap and happily looks down towards the ground hundreds of metres below.

She and Aussie partner Tommy (Troy’s Eric Bana) are sleeping in a (frankly terrifying) portaledge tent that’s clinging to the side of Norway’s Troll Wall, the tallest vertical rock face in Europe. Continuing their climb, Sasha pushes for them to reach the top while Tommy urges caution, and when she struggles to cross a difficult section, they call it a day. Then a fierce storm comes rolling in and tragedy ensues.

Five months later, a grieving Sasha is driving across the Australian wilderness towards the (fictional) Wandarra National Park. The game ranger at the entrance advises her not to go alone, pointing to a wall of missing-persons posters, but the tough Sasha isn’t put off. After being menaced by two leering hunters at the local gas station, she gets help from a fresh-faced young guy named Ben (Rocketman’s Taron Egerton), who directs her to a scenic camping spot.

After a day spent whitewater kayaking, Sasha wakes up the next morning to find her gear missing. It’s then that the helpful Ben shows up again and reveals his sinister plan: he will play a creepy song and Sasha will have until the end of it to get as far away from him as possible before he starts hunting her with a crossbow.

Marketed as a feminist action film along the lines of The River Wild (1994), Apex is more of a survival horror in the vein of Deliverance (1972) and, specifically because of its Australian setting, Wolf Creek (2005). Here the true danger is not so much from the inhospitable landscape as the disturbed locals who can do whatever they like to outsiders in this isolated setting.

The basic plot follows the oft-adapted 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game, but Apex doesn’t spend enough time on what could have been a gripping game of cat and mouse between the highly capable Sasha and her deranged pursuer.

Events soon veer into horror movie territory as Sasha is forced to endure physical and mental torture while witnessing the true extent and grisly nature of Ben’s derangement. It’s an unpleasant, disturbing sequence that threatens to derail the film with over-the-top gruesomeness.

Thankfully, director Baltasar Kormákur (Everest, Beast) pulls back just in time, rightly returning the focus to Sasha’s desperate fight against both Ben and the hostile environment. This leads to a nail-biting finale that cleverly recalls the film’s opening sequence.

Theron is as watchable as ever, completely convincing as a taciturn, tough-as-nails rock climber who’s at home in inhospitable terrain, but finds herself out of her depth dealing with an extreme human threat. Sasha never once breaks down or cries; instead, Theron expertly conveys her shock and terror with a glance or a flicker in her eyes.

Sasha is not a damsel in distress and refreshingly makes no stupid mistakes, but she’s not an invulnerable superhero either, making the danger she finds herself in very real and visceral.

The flashier part belongs to Egerton, who creates a particularly nasty character in his first villainous role. Ben is not a physically imposing figure, but his manic energy and animalistic movements are genuinely terrifying, making him unnervingly unpredictable. Egerton plays Ben like one of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys gone off the deep end, a mentally disturbed man child who thinks it’s all a game.

Apart from the impressive central performances, Apex is worth watching for its location. Originally set in America’s Pacific Northwest, filming was moved to the Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, allowing Kormákur to set scenes against spectacular backdrops such as the park’s Grand Canyon walking track with its dramatic cliffs and lush vegetation not seen on film before.

Special mention must also be made of the often stirring soundtrack by Kormákur’s fellow Icelander and frequent collaborator, Högni Egilsson (King & Conqueror).

All these elements add up to a worthwhile if gruelling watch. But at a refreshingly lean run time of 95 minutes, Apex is not another overlong modern movie that outstays its welcome. DM

Apex is showing on Netflix.

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.