User Reviews

****SPOILER ALERT!****

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE - DO NOT READ THIS!

*At first, it appears as though his sickness is just of the mind. He acts weird, asking odd questions that could make someone vulnerable, depending on the answer. "Do you have any weapons?" The look on his face when he said that made me immediately think, "Sociopath". I honestly thought the guy was just your garden variety psychopath from the get-go.

*This movie is long and drawn out. It's not until nearly the end that you find out he was telling the truth. Not the whole truth and it was too little too late, mind you. Of course, in true Kate fashion, she didn't listen. It gives some details on why their marriage was strained, but it doesn't really make you feel like you know them. I'm sure the actors did the best they could with what they had. It must have been excruciating, though, because it was terrible.

What I don't understand is, if the virus is airborne and so highly contagious, why would he allow them the opportunity to leave in the first place - when they had already been exposed and he claimed he was trying to contain it? Perhaps he was just playing with their minds, allowing them to think they had the upper hand. Thandie Newton - I liked her more in Chronicles of Riddick. 100% better. All in all, Retreat is awful. If you are looking for something that is depressing, this is it. Otherwise, don't watch it. Nothing could do a better job of ruining movie night.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Martin (Cillian Murphy) and Kate (Thandie Newton) retreat to a remote island off the coast of Scotland in an attempt to reconcile their marriage after suffering the heart ache of a still born child. With only an old transmitter radio to keep them in contact with the outside world, they are thrown into disarray when a weather storm breaks even this off. Things get worse when bruised and battered soldier Jack (Jamie Bell) washes up on the shore. After getting back on his feet again, Jack informs them a killer virus has taken over the outside world and they must barricade themselves inside if they want to survive. Unsure whether the man in their house is telling the truth, or a maniac with ulterior motives, the couple find themselves locked in an increasingly tense psychological battle where the one place they should feel most safe becomes the tightest little corner in the world.

It's interesting, and certainly very sad, how a lot of promising ideas for great films seem to find themselves skipping theatres and going straight to DVD in these tough economic times, which would appear to be the case with Retreat, which couldn't quite be described as a 'great' film, but certainly quite an impressive and well made one, that quite rightly has an impressive cast list to back up it's neat idea. Director Carl Tibbetts has taken the 'isolation' theme for this kind of psychological thriller and managed an effective sense of claustrophobia, which is the effect this kind of film is aiming for.

The set up works in the sense that with the radio broken and alone miles away from anyone and anything, it is never clear whether Jack is to be believed and while his claims are far fetched and fantastical, there is always the faint possibility they could be true. Tibbetts keeps up the pressure with the psychological mind games that ensue between the two parties, where the integrity of Bell's character fluctuates enough times to keep the suspense up.

Although it works the premise quite well, it can't be described as an original idea but it's still a decent, entertaining Dead Calm style thriller with a dark conclusion. ***

If you watch the trailer of Retreat, you watch 75% of the movie.

The movie spends the first twenty minutes telling the story of a young couple Martin (Murphy) and Kate (Newton). They are experiencing some marital problems, so they retreat to this isolated island in hope to save their marriage.

Then Jamie Bell's character Jack - a unconscious stranger covered with blood - finally appears, just as you see in the trailer. However, when I see Jack starts to bar the house when he wakes up the next day, I shake my head. My question is: how could the couple be that stupid to let a 5'7" lunatic do things like that?

Eventually, Jack makes a revelation. By the time, it doesn't matter if he is telling the truth or not.

In my opinion, Retreat suffers from a weak plot and the poor direction of a first-time director. It is supposed to be a thriller, but there is not enough suspense to keep the audience engaged throughout the ninety minutes. In fact, I wonder how can he drag the movie for that long. There is not much happening on the screen to keep the viewers occupied, and the so-called twist in the end feels flat.

The three main cast members did an okay job. However, the script doesn't provide enough room for character development. I don't learn enough about the characters to feel sympathy for them. There is no chemistry among the three characters. However, I feel Jamie Bell might be the one who enjoyed filming this movie most. Playing a lunatic must be fun. It also allows him to show off his toned body, although the shirtless scene is nothing more than a fan service.

Retreat only has four characters with lines. The complete cast consists of no more than six people. Visually, it is impaired by its low budget. I am not saying we need hundreds of extras, big explosions, adrenaline filled car chase sequences or things like that. But it needs some visual elements to help to build the suspense the movie desperately needs. The music and sound effects are effective though.

I don't know how did the director get actors like Murphy, Newton and Bell on board. Although the three actors are not A-listers, they must have read better scripts. Or, maybe the original script has some potential, but the final product becomes a disaster at the hand of an inexperienced director.

Retreat could have been a good movie if the director had had his eyes open. Since the general plot has been dissected numerous times by other reviewers, I won't waste your time by repeating the story all over again.

However, either the director thinks his potential audience are all a bit "slow" (to say the least) or HE is a bit slow himself. Why do I say this?

Well, even though Martin and Kate are going through a small setback, surely that is no reason why, when they find an unconscious injured man on their island retreat, they shouldn't, at the very least, clean him up and dress his wounds. In such an environment there would be no doubt that their cottage would have been well-equipped with first-aid provisions yet all they appear to have done is drag the poor guy into the house and dump him on a sofa and then just sit and look at him! NO ONE would do that no matter how disturbed they were! The guy still has streaks of blood all down his face from open wounds to his head! Gee! I would sure hate to get shipwrecked on an island where they were the only occupants!

Then, when he does come around, the stranger tells them what could well have been a true story albeit somewhat bizarre. But then, when he says that the virus is airborne and their house must be sealed up, no one thinks to ask what they are all going to breathe once it is and then, when he convinces Martin and Kate to actually decimate the building and board up the doors and windows, there are enough gaps between the boards for a vampire bat to fly through - let alone a minute virus - never mind the chimney!

The premise of the story is plausible but its handling is pathetic! The fact that Martin and Kate actually bought Jack's story is an insult to the intelligence. I watched Retreat to the bitter end because I love Thandie Newton (and so the ending didn't please me one bit!) With a couple of exceptions, Cillian Murphy's character, Martin, was pretty lame. For example, he tells his gorgeous wife that he doesn't know what to do to ease her pain. How about giving her a great big loving hug for starters? There's poor Thandie (sorry, Kate) crying out to just be loved and all he can say is that he doesn't know what to do! I could go on but what's the point?

Maybe another effort will be made with the story sometime in the future with better results. You know, I think that it should be mandatory for film directors to take basic courses in psychology so that, at least, their "normal" characters (as opposed to psychopaths who they can make as weird as they like) will behave like normal people do behave and not totally irrationally!

SPOILERS FROM BEGINNING. A REVIEW FOR OTHER VIEWERS ONLY THOUGH I DO RECOMMEND THIS FILM FOR THOSE YOU HAVE NOT VIEWED. I LIKED IT!



Certainly not a perfect movie. But I think it pulls of an unlikely plot well with only four actors with speaking lines. Both leading actors are playing well against their normal type of role to the extent that they should have really swapped roles. But because they didn't makes their performances more impressive and they are very believable.

The plot does not quite make sense and even when revealed at the end I was still unsure whether the Jamie Bell character was telling the whole truth. It seems very unlikely that he escaped a military prison with a gun, or later aquired one, and was able to meet and contaminate and cause the death of his wife. Then escape being caught and make it to an isolated island inhabited by two people. It would possibly make more sense, and maybe this was actually the true scenario of the plot to guess yourself (????), that he had been placed there by the military to see the effect on people of the possibly engineered military weapon to see how effective it was. Hey! Maybe I should write a movie? The use of Cillian Murphy as a meek and emotionally damaged character works well as he eventually displays a stronger will. And conversely the Jamie Bell character as an aggressive and acting suppresively on the two other actors also work as he also starts to show increasing weakness and emotionally wrecked true personality. Thandie Newton is also excellent throughout. Some reviewers see the blocking of windows and doors with wooden boards as a plot hole. But it isn't really. He firstly blocks them with plastic bags etc to stop potential infected people breathing in to the house. The wooden blockage is to stop them physically getting in. Airborne spread viruses don't flow usually over miles infecting people. Viruses of this type are normally spread by direct contact between people either by exhaling the virus closely between people or body liquid contact between the infected and non infected individuals. So blocking windows and doors so the infected can't enter makes perfect sense. The plot problems for me is does the Bell character expect to stay safe there for a long time. Does he expect to kill them anyway by their contact with him if he is the spreader of the virus. Is the virus really spreading around the world? The CB message seems to indicate that. If their is a vaccine which is not quite clear why are they not vaccinated instead of killed, in Thandie Newtons case. If the virus is spreading through the world why would the army take the time to come and kill them anyway, though at the end they only need to kill one character.

All these plot issues for me, like other films I have enjoyed, increase the sense of mystery and suspense. The ending of the movie does not really answer what is happening to the rest of the world. This, and the fact I thought the characters were very good unlike other reviewers opinion, increased the what I at times felt the crushing anxiety. Many people may say they could see the last scenes coming from miles away. I am normally pretty good, or rather bad as it reduces the enjoyment of a film, of seeing an end 'twist' coming. I didn't. I literally jumped out my seat. For that alone it is a 7/10 film for me. And as I say I was engrossed by the anxiety and uncertainty throughout. Also you my want to take note of my possible explanation of the plot earlier in the review. I thought it was a good explanation. If I ever find out that was what was intended I will increase it to 10/10 to massage my large ego. Joke. Or was it...

Retreat is a disappointing movie about a couple and a wounded soldier they found and take to their cottage on a remote, forsaken island. The soldier tells them that a contagious disease spread out in the rest of the world, killing everyone, and that they need to barricade the cottage and stay in it to be safe.

The tension between the couple and the soldier steadily increases, since they start to have serious doubts about his story and the disease. They want to leave but he doesn't let them. From then on they try to fight him to get free.

In the end you find out that he actually told a half-truth. He was sick, but the disease was within him. He wanted to keep them in the house to avoid it from spreading more. After the husband got the lethal disease and started dying his wife kills the soldier and then is killed by the army that has finally found the location of their missing soldier, who they used as a guinea pig.

The movie leaves a bitter aftertaste and the conclusion that you just wasted a lot of time. There are barely any good moments and the actions they perform are not conclusive most of the time. For example: The wive would play all tough and fight the soldier to the death sometimes while fall down crying like a baby in other occasions.

It's like she couldn't decide which role she wanted to play and I got that impression from the soldier a few times as well. Anyway... as long as you don't want to see a movie about 3 people fighting at each other in the most pitiful way, do yourself a favour and avoid Retreat. 3/10

In a last-ditch attempt to save their failing marriage after the stillbirth of their first child, Kate and Martin escape London for a retreat to the beautiful, yet remote and unpopulated Blackholme Island, which is off the west coast of Scotland.

Their relationship is already fragile and anxieties are pushed higher when they lose all contact with the mainland and after a heavy storm, an injured man is washed up on the shore.

Dressed in military fatigues and carrying a gun, the mysterious stranger regains consciousness and identifies himself as a British soldier called Private Jack Corman.

Soon he reveals that he carries a deadly message - an airborne virus is sweeping Europe and all their lives are under threat unless they take drastic action..

Part paranoia thriller, part Dead Calm, retreat sees the old adage of having 3 prolific actors confined to one set at the start of the second act, and let them rip.

It has mixed results though. The three actors are great in their respective roles, it's just the script is very average, and at times where tension is supposed to be the main attraction, it becomes a little boring.

Bell is the best thing about this. His brooding psycho is unhinged, and we are asking the question numerous times, is the little scamp making it all up? With films like this, of course there is a twist of sorts, or else it wouldn't make any sense, but the way it's handles isn't the best.

Murphy is obviously the weak husband, as hes an architect, so newton must be the hard woman, as shes been through a small tragedy.

The atmosphere of the film is good, and the third act really does make up for the mundane first two.

The end does smack you round the face, but you really have to work hard to get there.

A bit of a wasted opportunity, but worth it for the performances.

This film bears more than few similarities to another really bad film "Right at Your Door", which should send some potential viewers running from it. The characters are bland, the "plot twist" at the end was telegraphed from the beginning, none of it makes any sense whatsoever. What a waste of a talented cast this film was. Three incredible actors in Cillian Murphy, Thandie Newton and Jamie Bell are completely wasted in this tripe. As soon as Jamie Bell arrives in the film and starts barricading up the house without so much as any protest from Murphy's and Newton's characters I knew the film was going to be dreadful. The ambition of building tension is failed and the dynamics between the characters is completely screwed up, although Jamie Bell is very menacing, as the pretense is complete balls. Do not waste your time on this film, it is utter drivel.