Review: Storage

After his father is murdered by a mugger on the way home from a screening of “Death Wish II”, young Matt Scully is taken in by uncle Damien Garvey, who runs a storage facility and gives Scully a job there. He quickly discovers that the facility is full of oddballs and secretive-types. Along with friendly but flaky co-worker Saskia Burmeister he starts to take a particular interest in the secretive and surly Robert Mammone, who seems to be hiding something a bit suspicious. After Burmeister picks the guy’s lock and they go inside for a gander whilst Mammone is out, the inquisitive duo are caught by Garvey. Garvey sacks Burmeister on the spot and scolds Scully for not coming to him first with his suspicions. Eventually even Garvey seems to share Scully’s suspicions that Mammone might be a murderer who has something very incriminating in the big barrel he has stored in the facility. But are appearances deceiving?

Well this sure was a surprise. An enjoyable, interesting, and fairly original Aussie genre film. That said, I’m not quite sure which genre this 2009 film from writer-director Michael Craft best fits into. There are elements of horror, Hitchcockian thriller (notably “Rear Window” and “The Trouble With Harry”), and even hints of “Death Wish”-style vigilante flick. But at least none of these genres are the dopey comedy, quirky gangster flick or particularly kitchen sink arthouse drama, the only genres of films we seem to have adopted in the last 15 years. Thankfully, with films like “Wolf Creek”, “Rogue”, “Van Diemen’s Land”, “Dying Breed”, the underrated “Black Water”, and now this film, Australian filmmakers seem to finally be embracing the horror/thriller genres too.

Especially in previous decades, our genre films have been hit or miss, but I still think there’s room for genre films alongside the arthouse, AFI-award winning ‘serious’ pictures (that too few people in Australia bother to see, I might add- not that I always agree with such neglect). This one’s a solid one, and different enough to stand out, even though there are some flaws. For instance, the film opens with a father-son bonding session at the cinemas, watching “Death Wish II”...in 2009. I’m sorry, but not only are there very few cinemas in Australia that play older films (aside from the occasional retrospective festival or anniversary re-release), but there’s certainly no way that “Death Wish II” would be playing. Or the first “Death Wish” for that matter. The subsequent father-son conversation could’ve worked just as effectively if they had’ve been watching the film at home on TV (where indeed you can quite often find that film being shown). The subsequent “Death Wish”-style assault and murder is rather cute (if you know what I mean), and perhaps that’s why “Death Wish II” needed to be seen on the big screen, but it just took me out of the film early. However, this is just a minor complaint in a pretty decent film, otherwise.

The film has a nice quirky humour too it, especially early on as Garvey (a TV veteran, who is rock-solid here) is showing young Scully the ropes and he meets a bunch of strange characters like the bikie-looking druggie guy with all the tattoos. Meanwhile, Burmeister, whom I’ve never really noticed much before (outside of “Hating Allison Ashley”, and even then I was too busy looking at the lovely Delta Goodrem), steals her every scene and has a lovely presence in this. In fact, she also seems to bring the best out in Scully (who is fine, but a bit forgettable). I’ve never liked Robert Mammone as an actor (like Garvey, he’s been on Aussie TV recently, though he’s had plenty of film work too), finding his tough guy schtick to be a bit overbearing and pretty unconvincing. In this film, he’s essentially got the Raymond Burr role in “Rear Window”, before the film tweaks his character a bit. The tweak brings out the best in Mammone, because as a tough guy, he’s just not credible.

The film is solid and different enough from “Rear Window” not to be a copycat. That Hitchcock film was more of a romp (albeit one with murder and voyeurism attached), whereas this is a far darker and more serious film (and much better, IMHO). In fact, the only real problem the film has aside from Mammone (and the rather heavy-handed water-boarding subtext laid on in one important scene) is that, lovely as she is, Burmeister’s character is largely irrelevant to the plot, and she disappears for a great length towards the end.

But look, this is still a surprisingly good film, even if it descends into Michael Myers territory towards the end. Debutant writer-director Craft does a pretty impressive job here, and either he or cinematographer Tony Luu clearly have an eye for shot composition, as every inch of the frame is well used. The colour scheme is muted, but for once, this is natural, rather than being done by filters or gels, or at least so it seems to me.

I’m so glad to see that the Australian film industry is branching out into areas it either hasn’t ventured into before, or perhaps hasn’t ventured into for quite a long while (Richard Franklin did the Hitchcockian thing for most of the 80s, both in the US and at home, but few since have tried). This may be B-movie thriller material, but what the hell is wrong with that every once in a while? Especially when it’s as interesting and offbeat as this. I’ll be eagerly anticipating the next offering from the promising Mr. Craft, after this impressive debut effort.

Rating: B-