As more Australian actors and film-makers migrate to the USA, the home of good film plots, the better Australian drama will be.
I do not need to summarise the perceived plot of this movie, as it wastes space, as do most of the emotive, character-driven, plotless, loss and grief dramas we have to endure in Australia. Acting studios here also never seemed to have got out of the '70s. Pity Australian actors training and working here - having to scream, sob and grovel on the floor a la Tommy Wiseau of 'The Room' fame, or be hacked to pieces after having to strip naked and indulge in some illicit and lurid sex and drug scene a la 'Wolf Creek' or that steamy string of giant pig and crocodile sagas. You only have to see the predilections of some of our middle-aged producers to get the picture - or turn it off or walk out.
So I set to watch this now 10 year old film on TV with some trepidation, perhaps only willing to give it a try because of Teresa Palmer, who is achieving success overseas. Joel Edgerton I didn't know much about. Both these actors came up trumps in the end. Joel did the best and most authentic bogan I've seen in an Australian so far, when he took on that gang, and he looked the part all the way through. Teresa looked suitably sneaky.
My overall reaction to this film may be a little different to most. Here are a few points to ponder:
Weren't these folks, in their mid-thirties or thereabouts, a little old for this kind of doof doof ecstasy holiday? My teenagers had the same holidays (without the fatality) - when they were teenagers. I know the majority of arrests for ice crimes, etc, at home seem to be for that older age-group these days - but were the writers aware of this demographic, or was it co-incidental, in needing to use these particular actors?
There were hints and clues and ideas through the second half of the movie that seemed to have been forgotten or abandoned in the film-making process but leave niggling questions:
How involved was Steph really, who was a bit of a drifter, and had the odd shifty look about her?
What was the thing about the second-glance and close-up of the mail that was collected from Jeremy's flat - was an odd name spotted? Did that tie in with the name on the Post Restantante package that the Feds busted in Customs at the end, but seemed to want to throw in the too-hard basked with just a throw-away line?
And Jeremy's parents - too good to be true Mum and Dad, but the camera kept zooming in to those elephant ornaments on their coffee table - just after the Customs bust. Were they in on it? That unexplained letter zoomed in on as mentioned above - was it a bill of lading from Customs for Jeremy to collect the goodies when he returned, or were his parents expected to do it for him and hide the stuff in the elephants? Jeremy didn't live with them, so there is an unfollowed question there. And how did Jeremy's friends get into his flat and collect his mail when they hardly knew him? He didn't tell them to do that because he knew he wouldn't be coming back! Unless Steph was meant to do it for him, and keep the letter.
A good British crime drama would have incorporated those elements mentioned above, to make a far more satisfying, albeit inconclusive ending. Alice and Dave made a last visit to Jeremy's parents - supposedly to finally tell them what happened to him, no doubt as a street mugging or something. But it would have tied up all the lose ends, in view of the Customs bust sub-plot and all the other random clues, if that visit had been made by the Feds, and just left at that.
Australian film-makers need to swallow their pride, and study plotting harder, to achieve logical conclusions, and make a good drama that people will pay to watch outside of a festival or Government grant.
