THE PASSAGE

American Luke (Stephen Dorff) and British Adam (Neil Jackson) are holidaying together in Morocco. While Adam plays it like your typical Brit abroad - partying, drinking, shagging - Luke is a more contemplative soul, happy to while his hours photographing local sights and learning about the surrounding culture.

The pair go for an afternoon drink which runs into an evening meal, after which Adam suggests they carry on boozing. But Luke's ready to retire for the evening and so heads back to their extremely basic accommodation. On the way, Luke passes through a street market and stops to listen to an old man enthralling a small audience with tales of a Moroccan princess who defeated her enemies by seducing them with her beauty.

Cue Zahra (Sarai Givaty), a Moroccan lovely who appears beside Luke and translates the story for him. The pair hit it off instantly and go for a drink together, then a walk through the cobbled streets. Unfortunately they run into a couple of local thugs who spit in Zahra's face before picking a fight with Luke. Afterwards, Zahra tells him it was because the locals don't take kindly to their girls befriending Western men.

Undeterred, the pair arrange to meet the following day for a sightseeing tour of the nearby mountains. Adam's invited too, but bows out at the last minute due to a hangover. So Luke and Zahra take a tour bus into the middle of nowhere, where she tells him there are some beautiful sights to be seen. Sure enough, the day goes exceedingly well with Luke finding many visual delights to capture on his camera.

But come the evening, Zahra and Luke are stranded and unable to find a roof over their heads for the evening. That is, until a farmer allows them to stay in one of his small mountain-set houses.

During the night, a restless Luke gets up to take a leak and discovers a tunnel clumsily hidden behind a curtain. He does what no-one should ever do in this genre of film, and investigates further …

Yet another example of the Western world's paranoia towards our Eastern friends, THE PASSAGE inverts HOSTEL's they-deserved-it-style of positive discrimination by giving us a too-clean-to-be-true American lead. The foreigners really are evil in THE PASSAGE, judging by the way they treat poor old Luke.

Really, Dorff is a great actor and he does elevate this material somewhat, but the character of Luke is implausibly innocent - he's not interested in the women, he's reluctant to drink, the only swear words he seems to know are the ones taught to him by Adam … Luke's a studious, serious bookworm - too much so to be taken seriously.

The character of Adam is broadly written too, but at least it's more credible. Jackson does a fine job of breathing warmth into Adam, and emerges as the stand-out cast member. It's great when he finally comes back into the script two-thirds of the way in to the film. Givaty has little to do as Zahra, other than look pretty and speak in a sultry manner.

The main star of the film though is its scenery - the exterior shots of Morocco are a joy to take in, the sunny landscapes and cavernous mountains creating a character of their own among the hustle and bustle of the Eastern markets.

A keenly observed script helps the relationships in the film ring true, but the story itself is perhaps too thin and predictable to support a feature-length running time. Director Mark Heller does little to distract from this, but is lucky in that he has a strong cast and beautiful locations to bail him out.

Still, after a very good-looking but workman-like first hour, THE PASSAGE does become genuinely tense during its final third and builds up to a neat little twist. Beyond that, there's a terrifically provocative last-minute coda that should inspire "what if?" conversations afterwards.

DNC's disc offers THE PASSAGE uncut in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen. The picture is a good one, offering strong detail and accurate flesh tones.

The English 2.0 audio is equally reliable throughout, with dialogue easily audible and music appropriately upfront in the mix.

A static main menu includes a static scene-selection menu offering access to the film via 8 chapters.

The only extra is a 2-minute trailer presented in non-anamorphic 1.85:1.

It's been done before, and better, but THE PASSAGE still makes the grade as being a thoroughly watchable, above average thriller that's light on grue but strong on performances and script.

Review by Stuart Willis