The Reach

Beyond the Reach is a 2014 American thriller film directed by Jean-Baptiste Léonetti from a screenplay by Stephen Susco, based on Robb White's 1972 novel Deathwatch. The film stars Michael Douglas (who also produced), Jeremy Irvine, Hanna Mangan-Lawrence, and Ronny Cox. It follows a naked and unarmed hunting guide running from a wealthy hunter who wants to ensure his silence in the death of an old man. The film had its world premiere under its original title The Reach at the 39th Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2014. It was released in theaters and on-demand in the United States on April 17, 2015, by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions. Plot Ruthless tycoon and trophy collector John Madec flaunts his $500,000 all-terrain vehicle in a small Mojave desert town, buying off the local sheriff to bag an endangered desert bighorn sheep. The sheriff solicits the young but experienced tracker Ben to guide Madec an hour outside of town into the canyon country of Shiprock. Madec taunts Ben over his girlfriend, who has gone away to Colorado on a college swimming scholarship after being gifted a gun that Ben taught her to shoot. When Ben asks to see the permit to hunt the endangered bighorn, Madec offers a wad of cash, which the stunned Ben begrudgingly accepts. When Madec—with a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later philosophy—accidentally shoots an old prospector, Ben insists that they must report it as an accident. Madec puts another bullet from Ben's gun into the corpse, and after explaining how he can now blackmail Ben with questions of who was the actual killer, offers Ben a deal: Madec will put him through college with a finance major and give him a $300,000-a-year job in return for his complicity in covering up the crime.