Scenic Route (2013)

Elevator Pitch: When a road trip organised by Carter goes wrong he and his old friend Mitchell are stuck in the desert with defective pickup. Carter had arranged for the trip so that the two could get together and sort out their differences, having been life long friends, but had drifted apart. With the truck broken down at the roadside they argue and become violent. Mitchell, believing that he has killed Carter, digs a grave, but Carter is alive and they both end up sleeping in it. Various vehicles come and go but they dismiss them, scare the drivers or are unseen. Finally, when they have decided to hike to a small outpost they see the truck towed away. 

Content: There is one flashback to Mitchell having sex with an unclad young woman. Other than that they men argue for 30 minutes. Then they come to blows until Carter appears to be dead. Mitchell digs the grave, but Carter is alive and panicking. Eventually circumstances force them to  get together as they try to survive. They sleep in the grave together for warmth in the night and eventually set out on foot; difficult since Mitchell is on crutches. Eventually they get to a deserted town where Mitchell’s phone rings. They are rescued and become successful friends.

A View: The box office returns for this outing were in thousands rather than millions. It is a very short film and nothing much happens for the first thirty minutes apart from a lot of shouting. But nevertheless there is an increasing level of doom as the two make all the wrong decisions to end up in a deserted hamlet with only an almost empty barrel of water to help them. And then everything is alright, but is it.  I can say that I was moderately bored for quite a bit of the time but it is not too long, and in the end it gave me something to think about. So not all bad.

Additional Info: The desert is Death Valley in California, filming there took eight days.