Walking Out | A father-son hunting trip turns into a snowbound ordeal

Walking Out Matt Bomer Josh Wiggins
(Image credit: © 2017 Walking Out LLC. Under)

Walking Out Matt Bomer Josh Wiggins

Survival Runs In Their Blood.

A callow 14-year-old city boy David (Josh Wiggins) joins his reclusive estranged father Cal (Matt Bomer) for a hunting trip in the snowy wilds of Montana. However, what starts as a rite of passage turns into a grim ordeal when disaster strikes.

Based on a short story by David Quammen, outdoors adventure Walking Out by twin-brother directors Alex and Andrew Smith is an engaging combination of coming-of-age tale and rugged survival drama. As the stakes mount, the duo’s prickly bonding proves more and more affecting, with the relationship gaining extra depth from flashbacks showing Cal’s awkward rapport with his own father (Bill Pullman).

The locations are stunning, too, while the plangent strains of Dido’s Lament by Purcell in a beautiful jazz arrangement by cellist Ernst Reijsger hint at the tale’s surprising mythological underpinnings. The brief allusions are never spelled out, yet as the story develops it becomes clear that the beleaguered protagonists are intended as modern-day versions of Trojan hero Aeneas and his father Anchises.

Certificate 15. Runtime 92 mins. Directors Alex Smith, Andrew Smith

Walking Out available on DVD & Digital from Signature Entertainment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiB0Bit7wGI

Jason Best

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.