Between drinking sessions and one-night stands, washed-up tennis pro Tom (Sam Riley) clings to a job coaching holidaymakers at a hotel in Fuerteventura. When English couple Anne and Dave (Stacy Martin and Jack Farthing) arrive, their presence sets off a chain of events that leads to a mysterious disappearance.

Some reviews for Islands would suggest Islands as something Hitchcock might have concocted years ago, I would say that using Hitchcock’s name, and thus implying his unique genre of moviemaking, is giving Islands a sense of importance that it doesn’t really warrant. Yes, there is some mystery in a kind of whodunit way but by the end it’s mostly all smoke and mirrors. Director Jan-Ole Gerster throws in some teasing subplots, has the missing husband been murdered? (according to the local police Inspector there is evidence he has). But by the end it feels as if all the clues have been put in place, not to forward the story, but to confuse the audience into thinking that Islands is something it’s not. Islands isn’t so much a thriller more a study of relationships old and new.

Islands isn’t a bad film it just doesn’t live up the what the producers would like you to think it is.