Here was a movie with good intentions. I'm not saying it's bad. It just has long moments of flatness in between. Drone Territory. Separated years ago from his Asian love, a beautiful girl he just can't get out of his mind, an American vet returns to the Philippines to find her. Now believed to be a victim of the slave trade run by lower than lower pirates, he consults with his army friend who too, doesn't mind the company of a few young lasses (prostitutes) servicing him, now and again. He and his friends help this wounded soul of a guy, Nick, find his girl, that has him visiting bordello after bordello, to not much avail. Nick too, on his way over, strikes up a friendship with a tubby guy, your typical sex tourist, who he runs into again, not surprisingly in a nightclub that doubles as brothel. This guys a hoot by the way, a happier element to the film, you'll like him. The shocking element of the film has these traders scum-pirates do away with the non profitable prisoners, by throwing them overboard, kids and all in some scenes of shocking and graphic violence. These men are some of the worst evil out there, where human life means nothing, where later we meet a greater evil in the form of a big ruthless Madam, who has a young girl, late teens, give her manicures and all. Among these slaves, of course is Nick's girl, who will do anything, like falsely giving her selves to these pirates, sexually at one stage, where it leads you to believe it's a race against time. With help from a former prisoner of the slavers, who's on his deathbed, Nick disguises as a sex tourist visiting this out of way brothel, run by the sadistic madam. This scum, also runs much younger girls and their baby daughters for business. Granted, there are some shocking themes and moments to Cruel Horizon, but this dry drama, self conscious at times, just doesn't gel. The whole of the film is hardly suspenseful, yet they're are some tense parts early in the film. Really we learn nothing new, about this subject, although the pirate slave angle was different, this setting hardly used in sex slavery movies. Not a bad song in the end credits, to kind of mellow you out, after all the horror and nastiness prefore.
