Great Film overall

An action-packed slog

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Thirst is a truly embarrassing film, a genuine waste of footage that falls short in virtually every way. It has bad acting, bad characterization, and even bad camera work. It is a debacle.The film follows four people who get stranded in the desert after a minor accident. Four of the most annoying people you will ever see on a film screen. Only the Lacey Chabert character is even vaguely intelligent. Her husband is too stupid to pick up on the fact she is pregnant after she starts having morning sickness and avoiding alcoholic drinks. The model played by Mercedes McNab is so stereotypical and stupid you practically root for a coyote to come eat her.These characters fail to use even common sense desert survival techniques such as traveling at night. Similarly, the best way to deal with an angry rattlesnake is not to stand still within striking distance. I've never even been to a desert and I know this.Furthermore, the camera work borders on the disgraceful. Although there are a few nice shots of sunsets, the scenes filmed at night seem murky, as if they left on the lens made for bright light. Many of the day scenes seem bleached out, although that could be a result of the geography.Avoid this film at all costs.

Oh, my. Where to begin? Lacey Chabert is not only the star of this movie but is listed as one of the executive producers as well. That leads me to surmise that this film was intended, at least in part, to showcase Lacey's talents and get Hollywood to view her as a serious actress. If so, the effort backfires.In order for this premise (stuck in the middle of a desert with very few provisions) to work at all the characters have to make some pretty stupid mistakes. And our characters do. Driving 80 miles into the desert without any sort of backup plan in case of car trouble is, in fact, beyond stupid. As the movie and the stupid decisions continue it becomes increasingly hard to either believe the story or feel any sympathy for the characters.Thank God for Noelle (the lovely Lacey)! She is cast as a Captain Kirk here, keeping her cool while the others around her are losing theirs. But her hero status is all too clearly a plot device, again, to showcase her "talents." At one point Lacey performs emergency brain surgery using s screwdriver and a rock. I kid you not! She can do this, but she isn't smart enough to realize they should travel at night and stick to the road!As a person who rarely laughs out loud even at things that are supposed to be funny, I actually found myself laughing out loud at some of the plot twists. (Did someone mention breast implants?) Of course, the movie also has to show us several "gross out" scenes for seemingly no other purpose than to get some junior high viewers to say "Oh! Gross!" Not only do we get to watch characters drink their own urine, we have to watch them take in every last drop. "Ewwww! Gross!"Need I say more? This is a really bad movie with only one redeeming feature: The lovely Lacey Chabert who I have always liked in the past. "Thirst", however, is probably the biggest misstep in Lacey's career.

Watch this if...there are no other viable options for a struggle and survival movie. They are many better crafted and acted movies surrounding this theme available before you get to this point.Acting/Casting: 3* - This grade should be expected considering Chabert is your headliner. She is a beautiful specimen and that is her strongest/carrying asset. Brandon Quinn is downright aggravating at times and difficult to watch. Again, this is no surprise going into the movie.Directing/Cinematography/Technical: 5* - The setting is nice and the desert is convincing. While the overall directing isn't great, I feel that you do actually get a bit of the despair that these individuals are experiencing. This is also no surprise considering Lando is an aspiring B-movie director.Plot/Characters: 5* - The plot is nothing new, but survival is always an intriguing theme. If you watch the movie, you will note that there are a few questionable areas in the film. With a plot like this one, you really have to have some solid acting and directing to make it worthwhile.Entertainment Value: 3* - The acting coupled with the fact that there are a few moments that noticeably drag, really diminish the entertainment value of the movie. I have seen worse, but I have seen many better. One watch is enough and probably too much.My Score: 3+5+5+3 = 16/4 = 4.0Email your thoughts to [email protected]

**SPOILERS** Filmed in the North Thompson desert region of British Columbia the movie "Thrist" takes place in the space of less then a week involving two couples who got themselves lost in the desert when their van was forced off the road in it avoiding a wolf who just happened to get in it's path.Suffering from a saver concussion in the accident fashion model Atheria, Marcedes McNab, later dies from a cerebral hemorrhage despite the heroic efforts by her friend Noelle, Lacey Chabert, to save her life. Stuck in the middle on nowhere with the nearest sign of civilization at least 50 miles away Noelle and her boyfriend Bryan, Tygh Runyan, and fashion photographer Tyson, Brandon Quinn, have their work cut out for them with the dry heat of the desert, reaching over 110 degrees, and lack of water sapping them of their strength as well as lives!The film "Thirst" shows just how desperate people will get in order to prevent themselves from slowly dying of thirst. Even go as far as drinking their own bodily fluids, including their own blood, as well as the fluids of animals, like rattlesnakes, that they kill in order to survive. There's also the mysterious and ghostly wolf, the one that caused the accident, who's always following the trio all throughout the movie as if to guide them back to civilization.***SPOILERS** It later becomes apparent that this ghost wolf is not real but a figment of Noelle's imagination in her being the only person able to see him.As the movie goes on both Bryan & Tyson soon get poisoned by drinking infected, with arsenic, water that they came across coming out of from a desert spring. Tyson who just about gave up being rescued, with his girlfriend Atheria dead, slowly went into convulsions and died before help could arrive. It was Bryan, who didn't want the suffer the same fate that Tyson did, who cut his throat with a razor blade to spear him from any farther suffering. Yet at the same leaving Noelle all on her own in the unfriendly desert.***SPOILER*** It was the ghost wolf who in the end lead Noelle to safety by guiding her to a nearby desert road where she was rescued by a park ranger. That just when a cloud burst happened and she got drenched with a downpour of life giving, and saving, rain!