Review: Red Hill

Ryan Kwanten is a city cop who relocates to the small country town of the title, with his pregnant wife (Claire van der Bloom). Unfortunately, any plans of easing his way into his new life are immediately cast aside when local top cop Steve Bisley (all gruff and steely-eyed gravitas) requires all hands on deck to locate an escaped murderer (a facially-scarred aboriginal played by Tom E. Lewis) apparently on his way to Red Hill. With the man armed, dangerous, and an expert tracker to boot, the orders are ‘shoot to kill’. That isn’t mild-mannered and somewhat naive Kwanten’s usual way of dealing with things (much to the annoyance of man’s man Bisley). A close personal encounter with the escaped convict sees Kwanten take a slightly more forceful approach, but aboriginal Lewis leaves him largely unharmed. It seems he’s more focused on the other cops for reasons only gradually revealed. It would appear that this town and its lawmen have a dark secret that is about to come back and bite them in the arse. Kevin Harrington plays an essentially deskbound cop, former “Prisoner” star Elspeth Ballantyne has an odd (i.e. pointless) cameo as an elderly motorist.

It’s a good day whenever I see an Australian film that doesn’t have its head up its own arse, even if it’s not a great film. This 2010 film from writer-director Patrick Hughes won’t win any awards for originality, but it’s a rock-solid revenge-western (somewhere in between “Bad Day at Black Rock” and “Chato’s Land”), a classical piece of genre filmmaking. Although the story is nothing new, Hughes the director certainly shows some promise. It’s an impressive debut, to be sure.

Some might call of its ‘wild west’ trappings to be a bit of commercialism (you’d think the casting “True Blood” actor Kwanten would help too), to which I’d reply: So? What’s wrong with wanting to make a film that other people might actually go and see? Mind you, westerns haven’t been popular in decades, so that mightn’t have been the smartest decision. Still, this is a pretty enjoyable B-movie that only falters with its choice of lead character. Kwanten’s character proves ultimately to be useless as fuck. He falls damn near to his death, faints, gets shot at, gets knocked out...he borders on being Jack Burton at times, and at least “Big Trouble in Little China” had its tongue in-cheek. Kwanten’s perfectly fine in the role, however, and cannot be faulted.

The biggest strengths are the cinematography by Tim Hudson and the slightly Morricone-esque music score by Dmitri Golovko (who certainly knows his western musical cues). Some might find both of these elements to kind of evoke the American western (though the scenery could still be explained away as rural Australia) and take poorly to that, but if you can get over that, both elements are more than commendable. Hudson in particular shows off a nice affinity for light and shadow that makes this a darker than usual western. He also gives us shot compositions that give off much more of a big-time Hollywood vibe than one might expect in an Australian film (one that cost around $3 million, by the way). That’s not indicative of selling out, it’s indicative of the right damn approach for the genre. This isn’t an action film, but I must say that the action is nonetheless very good. Given the likes of “Mad Max”, “Mad Max II”, and “The Matrix” (which was filmed in Australia and presumably with some Aussie crew), it’s a wonder we haven’t dipped into the action movie well all that often.

Meanwhile, casting Aboriginal actor Tom E. Lewis in the role of a convicted murderer might seem a bit on the nose, but it’s a minor issue if anything. I mean, it could just be an homage to his similar role in 1978’s “The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith”, to be honest. Veteran character actor Steve Bisley (a “Mad Max” alum) does some of his strongest work in a while in an intimidating, typically uber-macho part. His facial hair is also awesome. You’re shit outta luck here if you hate him as an actor, though. Personally I think he’s one of our better actors of that vintage.

Yes, it’s a standard ‘aggrieved convict coming to seek revenge on those who apparently wronged him’ western plot, but this is still strong, simple genre filmmaking. What’s wrong with that?

Rating: B-