Mystery Road (2013)

After watching the superb "ripped from the headlines" Aussie Noir mini-series Deep Water recently,I read reviews by a fellow IMDber. Nearing the end of a page,I noticed a tantalising Aussie Noir title.Finding the name of the flick familiar,I found out that it was about to air on TV! Which led to me going down the mystery road.The plot:Returning to his old small town where his ex-wife and daughter live, aboriginal Detective Jay Swan is sent to investigate the body of an aboriginal teenage girl found at an "unofficial pit-stop." Learning that her name was Julie Mason,Swan finds out that Mason was an addict,who was a hooker that had sex with truckers at the stop. Searching for info from Mason's pals,Swan tracks down her phone,and finds messages from his daughter. Whilst trying to find out what his daughter is caught up in,Swan begins to notice that a number of his fellow officers appear very keen in stopping from going down a road that gets to the heart of the case,and the town.View on the film:Retaining the way he could give a calm situation an underlying sense of menace in the first Matrix flick, Hugo Weaving gives a chilling performance as cop Johnno,whose "friendly" small-talk and shoulder taps to Swan crackle with a sinister unease,whilst Ryan Kwanten (minus his fake Deep South accent from True Blood) gives a creepy performance as Pete Bailey,with Kwanten using space to open the uncomfortable mood between Bailey and Swan. Gliding in wearing cowboy boots and hat, Aaron Pedersen gives a marvellous performance as lone Noir "cowboy" Jay Swan,as Pedersen gives Swan a Noir gravitas over the horrific treatment of fellow aboriginals,with a rebellious kick to clear the town of all the outlaws standing on the road.Stroking the brittle Noir tension with coiled crane shots scanning the decayed wilderness for figures wanting Swan to not uncover the full mystery,writer/director/editor/cinematographer/composer Ivan Sen breaths unrelenting dread into the landscape,with lingering looks at Swan's face displaying the shot of anxiety cast across his face,as Swan finds himself a Noir loner in a town that wants to keep its mystery.Hitting Swan with bullets of racism,the screenplay by Sen exposes the mistreatment of aboriginals in its rawest form,where people who live in run-down housing projects are treated like dirt,and Swan's aboriginal roots are mercilessly leaned on for threats. Pulling Mason's body from the roadside,Swan drives down a cracking Noir mystery Thriller. Limiting the violence to short rounds of bloodshed,Sen brilliantly uses the scorching hot setting to give the dialogue a heaviness that is pulled by the murky underbelly that Swan finds under the mystery road.

Each time I see another Australian film I'm convinced to NEVER visit Down Undah! What a pit of vipers! Talk about low-lives! Everyone lives in a trailer or dumpy tin roofed shack out in the boons with wild dogs, alcoholic mothers/father, drug addict siblings and friends, gambling, prostitution and winos. They mistreat ALL animals. They defecate where they eat. There are vermin everywhere--bugs, snakes, rabid mongrels. They give you that nasty dumb stare when you ask a question and then they use sarcasm answering and talk about you in the third person in front of their cronies! It's like bad high school! Who'd care to visit? It's amazing these creeps stay but I suppose the ole 'dog that I know is better...' works here too. Anyway, entertaining film with nice pace of action and some surprise but in the end he goes back to the addict shrew of an ex-wife and insolent whorish teenage daughter to try to make amends for his neglect of years ago. After you meet the wife and bitch child, you won't wonder why he left!?

Going by the reviews i thought this one would be a top notch thriller.To my surprise the movie is slow paced and makes you fall asleep .I literally slept twice in the first 50 minutes.The acting in the movie is what keep you going and asking for more.The direction could have been much better but the actors have done justice to whatever screen space they could get .The director confuses a very good plot with some unnecessary twists and turns which don't make sense at all.Over all the movie offers some amazing shots of Australia ,i wish i could say the same thing about the entire movie.Its definitely not in the A- league but can be a time killer as it was for me on a laid back Sunday!

Why was I immediately sold on this movie? Within minutes I was hooked, and stayed with it 100% right through. That, in my case, is an immediate plus point for any movie.So how did it get me? I guess because it struck me as believable - the characters, the places, the story. Having visited the edge of the Auz outback I fully related to the backgrounds and the characters. The texture and feel of the presentation struck me as the genuine article. I have said it before about top quality film directing - that the feel was more like a documentary with real people and not actors.The acting was excellent but not of a fine silken quality or in any way slick. Rather the characters were raw and gritty, which could explain some review comments suggesting wooden or poor acting.This movie felt like a fly on the wall view of the hard side of a tough life in the Australian outback, replete with huge social problems, racism, and defeated and depressed people tying to survive while drugs and crime were eating into the life of the area.As depressing as was the setting, funny enough, I was not in the least depressed by the movie. There was a strong ethical line and I felt throughout that good would make it in the end.This is a great movie without any big name actors, without fancy settings, without a great musical score, without great special effects, without bells or whistles of any description. It is totally minimalist art. It's greatness is in the excellent direction, the acting, the cinematography, and a decent enough plot.