Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

macpet49-1 Each time I see another Australian film I'm convinced to NEVER visit Down Undah! What a pit of vipers! Talk about low-lives! Everyone lives in a trailer or dumpy tin roofed shack out in the boons with wild dogs, alcoholic mothers/father, drug addict siblings and friends, gambling, prostitution and winos. They mistreat ALL animals. They defecate where they eat. There are vermin everywhere--bugs, snakes, rabid mongrels. They give you that nasty dumb stare when you ask a question and then they use sarcasm answering and talk about you in the third person in front of their cronies! It's like bad high school! Who'd care to visit? It's amazing these creeps stay but I suppose the ole 'dog that I know is better...' works here too. Anyway, entertaining film with nice pace of action and some surprise but in the end he goes back to the addict shrew of an ex-wife and insolent whorish teenage daughter to try to make amends for his neglect of years ago. After you meet the wife and bitch child, you won't wonder why he left!?

Leofwine_draca MYSTERY ROAD is another atmospheric, well-made and well-acted Australian movie that contains bags more style and atmosphere than many a bigger-budgeted Hollywood movie. This one's set in the much-ignored Aboriginal community and a kind of poverty-row slum that will be familiar to anybody who's sat through the gruelling SNOWTOWN.Thankfully, MYSTERY ROAD isn't anywhere near as grim as that movie, although it is a murder mystery in which young Aboriginal girls are being found with their throats slit, their bodies having been partially eaten by wild dogs. Rogue cop Aaron Pedersen is on the case, and he predictably comes up against the usual racism and conspiracies in his bid to discover the truth behind the murders.The film as a whole has a compelling vibe and despite being slow-paced it's completely engrossing. The low-tech nature of the production gives it a naturalistic feel and the performances are excellent, particularly from the bigger names like Hugo Weaving (THE MATRIX), Damian Walshe-Howling (THE REEF), Bruce Spence (MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR), and Ryan Kwanten (RED HILL) who all give subdued, authentic turns.My only real complaint is that there are so many sub-plots here that half of them don't get tied up, leaving too many loose ends at the climax. Still, the film-makers make up for this by staging a lengthy, action-packed climax that's one of the most nail-biting, realistic, and gripping that I've seen in a while.

irishsounds Why was I immediately sold on this movie? Within minutes I was hooked, and stayed with it 100% right through. That, in my case, is an immediate plus point for any movie.So how did it get me? I guess because it struck me as believable - the characters, the places, the story. Having visited the edge of the Auz outback I fully related to the backgrounds and the characters. The texture and feel of the presentation struck me as the genuine article. I have said it before about top quality film directing - that the feel was more like a documentary with real people and not actors.The acting was excellent but not of a fine silken quality or in any way slick. Rather the characters were raw and gritty, which could explain some review comments suggesting wooden or poor acting.This movie felt like a fly on the wall view of the hard side of a tough life in the Australian outback, replete with huge social problems, racism, and defeated and depressed people tying to survive while drugs and crime were eating into the life of the area.As depressing as was the setting, funny enough, I was not in the least depressed by the movie. There was a strong ethical line and I felt throughout that good would make it in the end.This is a great movie without any big name actors, without fancy settings, without a great musical score, without great special effects, without bells or whistles of any description. It is totally minimalist art. It's greatness is in the excellent direction, the acting, the cinematography, and a decent enough plot.

Adam Kessler Mystery Road (2013) is a film about a small town cop whose investigation into the death of a young prostitute leads him into a dark underworld of meth producers and pimps. While director Ivan Sen tries to effect a dark and somber mood, it's kind of hard to take the whole thing seriously when some of its locales have names like "Slaughter Hill" and "Massacre Creek". Even the naming of the titular road seems to serve no purpose other than to remind us of the genre of film we're watching. Which is to say nothing of the film's weird affinity for aerial tracking shots of "Detective Jay Swan" driving from one dilapidated country shack to another. Mystery Road scores some points for its visual association of a rustic countryside setting with bleakness and decay (see also, True Detective and Breaking Bad), but everything from Aaron Pederson's flat performance to the overlong running time make this a B-list thriller at best. If the film has a saving grace, it's the deftly choreographed shootout scene at the end.