You don’t hear about too many Australian westerns in this part of the world but when you watch the trailer for Red Hill something about the idea excites you. Maybe it’s that the film comes off as a dark thriller rather than the same bright and cheery revenge based western that we have seen over and over again here in America. With a great cast and cool looking trailer I decided to give the contemporary Aussie western, Red Hill, a shot. To find out the verdict and to check out the trailer hit the jump.
Red Hill is a thriller that focuses on a young police officer named Shane Cooper, played by True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten, who has just been relocated to a remote town in the Australian mountains due to his wife’s pregnancy (Claire Van Der Boom). The station where he will be working is run by Old Bill (Steve Bisley–Mad Max), a sheriff that reminds me of John Wayne’s character from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. On the day he is set to begin is duties, there is an explosion at a maximum security prison where Jimmy Conway (Tom E. Lewis), a convicted murderer, was serving a life sentence. Conway escapes, drives six hours north and returns to Red Hill to seek revenge on the people who sent him to prison in the first place. The film takes place over that one full day and night.
We all love westerns because the stories are usually simple and involve some sort of cool retribution. This movie was no exception to that rule, instead of retribution coming from the “cowboys,” it was coming from the killer himself which was an interesting twist on the story and is one that worked. It isn’t often you watch a movie from one perspective and realize that the film is trying to get you to see it from another perspective, in this case an aboriginal Australian fighting back against the state; So props to the film for doing something a little different and including some unsuspecting twists.
If someone asked me right now what I thought of Red Hill I would tell them that is was “OK.” With that being said let me get into the details as to why a film which I was rooting for from the get go ended up letting me down in certain respects.
In terms of the directing, Red Hill is director Patrick Hughes first feature length film in which he also acted as producer, writer and editor. Hughes had a good story on his hands that he managed to screw up a few times with a weird side plot and some unrealistic battle results. The first has to do with a Panther wandering the Australian wilderness. There may be some symbolic significance to the panther but in actuality, it was bad attempt to break the new guy, Officer Kwanten, into the Red Hill force. [LAUGHABLE SPOILER] The fact that a Panther actually does appear in the movie comes at a point in the movie where the drama is at its highest point and turns it into a laughable one [end spoiler].
One other aspect that bothered me about Hughes’ first directorial effort was the slow deterioration of its once realistic nature. For example, Officer Cooper gets hurt at one point and is bleeding rather badly [POTENTIAL SPOILER] but instead of finding a way to fix up his wound he ends up bleeding the entire night and somehow manages to stand after at least, or what appears to be, five hours of bad bleeding. I may not be a doctor but I know that there is no way one can explore an entire country town and manage to stand strong at the end after bleeding for that long. [End spoiler]. This was the one other aspect that really pissed me off.
As for the acting I thought it was good, I have no complaints and actually enjoyed everyone’s performance, especially Tom E. Lewis’ role as the silent but deadly Jimmy Conway. The cast is pretty well known in Australia and some have been making a name for themselves here in America for some time as well. I hope to see them in another grungy film because they are capable of making it rather successful.
Lastly, the score was probably my favorite part about the film. There is something about the old school western folk songs that we hear in the classics like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that make these movies so much more entertaining to watch and significantly add to the suspense. What was special about the score in this film was that since it’s classified as a contemporary western, the score included some heavy western rock instrumentals which gave the film an almost badass vibe. The electric guitar was key in crafting a unique score for this outlier of a western.
Overall, Red Hill wasn’t a total disappointment but it wasn’t everything I was hoping for either. You get plenty of blood, some cool kills, a panther, a bit of humor and a great score. If you’re in the mood for a modern day western where everyone is out for retribution then you should check out Red Hill because I think it will satisfy your craving. Red Hill, which has not been rated, hits theaters on November 5th from Strand Releasing.
Rating: Retribution has never been so dark in a western that can only be described as average
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