Review: The Chain Reaction

At the WALDO nuclear facility, doctor Heinrich (Ross Thompson) accidentally gets a fatal dose of radiation poisoning in a flood from a containment breach at the facility. He is quarantined but makes an escape. Mechanic Steve Bisley and his wife Arna-Maria Winchester are having a private getaway in some remote area of Australia. But their sky rockets in flight (one for the Starland Vocal Band fans out there) are interrupted by the sudden appearance of supposed amnesiac Heinrich. At the same time, sinister mercenaries employed by WALDO arrive in the area to apprehend Heinrich, before he lets the public know the horrible fate that awaits us all. And now he’s dragged fast-driving Bisley and innocent wife Winchester (who tends to the sick man) into the mess. Hugh Keays-Byrne plays Thompson’s former colleague whom he tries to contact after his escape.

A nice try but this 1980 Ian Barry (a man with much TV experience in his first film directing gig) mixture of nuclear-thriller and “Mad Max” (featuring several cast members and director George Miller doing the action scenes) never quite comes together. Some of it’s fun, especially the well-directed and edited action sequences. Rugged “Mad Max” actor Bisley (he played the ill-fated Goose) is pretty enjoyable in the lead, a German-accented Thompson is OK if a little dour, and the always quirky Keays-Byrne (the uber-weird Toecutter in “Mad Max”) plays the most normal character I’ve seen him play, but the rest of the cast are uneven. Winchester is dull, and the villains in particular are badly acted by Ralph Cotterill and co, and that hurts the film.

Even worse, the story is really clunkily laid out, and really needed a few re-writes. It was certainly full of intrigue early on, and so whacked-out that you keep watching, but at the same token, the set-up isn’t quite coherent enough. I didn’t believe in the world that the writer-director had set-up for things to take place. I also don’t think Mr. Barry (who wrote the screenplay too) had the budget needed to sell what is essentially an apocalyptic scenario in-waiting. Lots of interesting cameos, notably a very brief appearance by a bearded Mel Gibson, as a mechanic.

Some of it’s fun, and I commend Barry and co for trying something really different, but it’s only watchable at best. But hey, it’s an Aussie genre film, thankfully not a dull kitchen sink drama or lame ocker comedy, so that’s something to be thankful for. It’s one of the better Aussie genre pieces of the period, from a pretty poor selection, but still, it does have a cult following. Terrific scenery too, and petrol-heads might enjoy it more than most.

Rating: C+