The Mountain Between Us

The Mountain Between Us (2017)

Starring Idris Elba, Kate Winslet, Dermot Mulroney, and Beau Bridges

Directed by Hany Abu-Assad

Written by Chris Weitz and J. Mills Goodloe

Summary (in 500 words or less):  When their flight to the East Coast is cancelled due to bad weather, strangers neurosurgeon Ben Bass (Idris Elba) and photojournalist Alex Martin (Kate Winslet) decide to pool their money together and get a local private pilot (Beau Bridges) to fly them to their destination.  Midflight, however, the pilot suffers a deadly stroke and their plane goes down in the mountains of Colorado.  Desperate to survive in the frigid landscape, Ben and Alex band together to make it to safety.

• The Mountain Between Us is unfortunately about forty-five minutes too long...and it's not all that long to begin with at 110 minutes.  
• Despite being anchored by two very strong and capable performances from Idris Elba and Kate Winslet, the film pushes a romantic chemistry between the duo which the survivalist pic didn't really need.  
• Director Hany Abu-Assad's film works best in its first act in the lead-up and immediate aftermath of the plane crash and then falls apart when it pushes Elba and Winslet to fall for one another which just ends up coming off as laughable.  It leads to one of the silliest and foolishly shot sex scenes I've seen in a while.
• It's a bit of a shame the film's script takes this flick where it eventually goes because there were pieces at the beginning that made this seem more promising than it ended up being.

The RyMickey Rating:  C