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Film reviews

Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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Beneath Hill 60 (Film)

by Julian Shaw | April 12, 2010 15:39 | Edited April 12, 2010 15:41

Driven by a fine script and top performances, this powerfully affecting drama reveals an astonishing untold Australian war story.

One of the more spectacular chapters in the seemingly exhausted reserve of Western Front folklore has been buried beneath the earth for almost a century. Now director Jeremy Hartley-Sims has brought forth the hitherto unknown story of the WWI Australian Tunnelling Company. The tale makes for a thoroughly realised, sobering and inventive new Australian film. The ATC was in fact a ragtag group of engineers and miners, with only the most spartan military training between them. These ordinary, salt-of-the-earth men were charged with bringing down a byzantine network of German tunnels by simply digging deeper into the blue clay than their enemy, and achieving victory from below.

 

While the pay off looms large, the story is mostly preoccupied with the minutiae of life in the dripping wet trenches, and David Roach's script expertly draws us into life below sea level. Captain Oliver Woodward (Brendan Cowell, in a finely judged turn) anchors the film vividly, as the gutsy little general overseeing an operation that is routinely sabotaged by flooding and counter-espionage. Flashbacks to rural Australia prove a literally stunning counterpoint, so far removed are they from the world of oozing silt and oppressive, driving Belgian rains.

 

Hartley-Sims, who proved a dab hand at wringing drama from closed-off quarters in Last Train To Freo, once again creates a forbidding cinematic space, but most pleasing is that there is little in the way of overblown heroism - we never have any doubt that if these men make it out of the trenches, they will be dearly damaged goods. Performances are fine in the supporting ranks, with Anthony Hayes a stand-out as Woodward's right-hand man, though some of the younger cast falter. It's a small quibble though for a powerfully affecting drama, which adds to the fine run that Australian cinema is enjoying currently.