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Acolytes (Film)
Rating: MA
Running Time: 91
Country: Australia
Director: Jon Hewitt
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Sebastian Gregory, Hanna Mangan Lawrence, Joshua Payne
Distributor: Rough Beast
Film Worth: $6.50
Release Date: April 16, 2009 Brisbane, April 30 Sydney, May 14 Perth
“…utterly unconvincing…”
Acolytes opens with tremendous promise in a series of beautifully constructed wide shots of mountains and ancient forests. It looks harmless, yet harbours a brooding danger - we know this from the eerie music and a frightened, bloodied girl running through the trees who meets an untimely end. These hills are not so innocent.
So starts screenwriters Shane Krause and Shayne Armstrong's derivative calling card, which traces a very short memory through Wolf Creek and Gone, and then draws it back into suburbia where teenager Mark (Sebastian Gregory) finds a body in a nearby forest. His discovery piques the interest of two friends (Hanna Mangan Lawrence, Joshua Payne). This overly mature threesome decides to take on a paroled thug (Michael Dorman), and blackmail the mysterious driver of a red car (Joel Edgerton) who might be a serial killer. Why? Well, it's a good question, and one of many that are never adequately answered.
Exceptional production from director Jon Hewitt doesn't paper over an utterly unconvincing story that plays so fast and loose with genre conventions that reality is left hanging. Although narrative structure stays within its own framework of internal logic, there are just way too many blatant lapses of credibility. Irritating contrivances, unbelievable character responses, and general implausibility (do these kids have a Narnia wardrobe for easy access to the forest?) soon overwhelm a film that is finally buried by the paucity of the titular payoff. A requisite number of gory, slashing, scream-filled moments raise the heartbeat as kids chase killers, and the killers chase kids. What's missing is a freshness of purpose, and the conviction of motive. You know, the important stuff.