Review: Road Train

Youngsters on an outback camping trip (lovers Sophie Lowe and Bob Morley, and their squabbling friends Xavier Samuel and Georgina Haig) are run off the road by a huge truck, AKA a Road Train. In all of the chaos, Morley becomes badly injured, and so they decide to confront the truckie, who seems to have stopped. When they get there, the truck appears to be abandoned, however. The film only gets weirder from there, as the four protagonists soon realise that this is no ordinary truck, but a sinister, possibly supernatural entity that will proceed to mess with their minds. David Argue turns up as the nutjob truck driver.

I’m usually the guy lamenting the lack of Aussie genre movies out there and praising them when one comes along. But here’s one you can definitely skip. I guess not all of these Aussie genre films are going to be winners, but by all means, keep ‘em coming. This 2010 directorial debut from Dean Francis and writer Clive Hopkins tries to blend “Duel” (which of course was Steven Spielberg’s directorial debut) with something in-between a somewhat supernatural horror flick and a mind fuck flick, and the blend is not a smooth or satisfying one at all. It’s actually pretty dull, and that surprises me a bit because it has two of Australia’s most lauded up-and-coming talents (Xavier Samuel, Sophie Lowe) in addition to a former soapie heartthrob (Bob Morley). Then again, the most highly touted of the actors (Critic’s darling Lowe) for me is the weakest of the bunch, with Xavier Samuel easily the best of the lot, followed by Georgina Haig. Morley has a blokey charisma to him (and it wouldn’t surprise me if he becomes a star in the vein of a Vin Diesel or Keanu Reeves), but isn’t very well-served by the silly script. I think everyone just loves Lowe because she has a young Sissy Spacek look to her, she’s an OK actress at best. Oh well, at least this film answers the question of whatever happened to David Argue from “Razorback”. He’s here in an utterly worthless cameo with a not very convincing foreign accent.

It’s a good-looking film with great shot composition, but an overly familiar story, although at least it moves relatively swiftly in the setup (especially for a film that doesn’t really end up going very far). Director Francis works his butt off to ratchet up the tension, but to no avail. He’s fond of long tracking shots of the outside of the truck, but the truck in “Duel” was far scarier. I also didn’t appreciate the trippy, time-lapse stuff either, I’ve never been a fan of that sort of thing.

None of the characters are especially interesting (save for maybe Haig’s), and it comes off like a dull 70s/80s Ozploitation film (Especially those cheesy shots of red-eyed German Shepherds). I didn’t enjoy it much.

BTW, does anyone really use the term ‘Road Train’ to describe a truck? I’ve honestly never heard the term before in my life but apparently it’s a very Aussie term.

Rating: C