THE HIGH FRONTIER is a routine Polish thriller with a familiar kind of storyline that sees a father take his sons up into the snowy mountains for a spot of familial bonding. Their lives are, however, thrown into jeopardy by the arrival of a mysterious stranger and the story develops from there. It's hard to put a finger on it, but this is one of those films which simply doesn't grab the viewer. The characters are cold and unlikeable from the very beginning which makes it impossible to get involved in their plight, while the thrills feel drawn out and too familiar from other, better movies. It's also very dark and routinely directed, which doesn't help.

Father with issues to which we aren't ever privy, takes kids to a remote mountain shack in the snow. Why? Who knows, we aren't really given that information. One of the kids also has father and masculinity issues, again why?, who knows? What we do know is that Kids are too soft with no survival training to be anywhere near the wild.

Usual wonky generator, radio to civilization stops working. Dodgy criminal turns up covered in blood with a gun. Stupid father leaves soft kids with dodgy Criminal. ? Stupid kids let criminal free from handcuffs and give him his gun back. The rest is a drawn out predictable mess where all sense and logic goes missing.

A dangerous smuggler terrorizing a snowbound family in the mountains... This is less family-oriented as, say, Avalanche 1994, in fact this is quite brutal sometimes -- and needless to say, all the old actors in this, who play Lech, Mateusz and Konrad, are infinitely better than David Hasselhoff. But basically this is an age-old story with very few surprises. The older son being gay is the only motif usually not found in such films. And they use this idea efficiently, showing that in face of a very "masculine" challenge he has to fight the low expectations of his father and brother as well.

Mostly good rhythm and excellent cinematography, but the score is simply too much, with howls, shrieks and all it would be more suitable for a horror with lots of scares. Paired with this story (which flows quietly most of the time) this agitated music raises expectations the pictures can not live up to.