Worth: $15.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Jordan Fraser-Trumble, Damon Hunter, Kevin Dee, Clayton Watson, Nicole Pastor
Intro:
Unsettling, brutal, and provocative …
Unsettling, brutal, and provocative, this Australian drama follows two seemingly ordinary men, David (Jordan Fraser-Trumble), and his brother-in-law Aaron (Damon Hunter), as they hunt, kidnap, and torture newly released convicted rapist, Troy (Kevin Dee).
The film’s slow-building pace allows time to be spent with each of our leads, fleshing out characterisations and encouraging the audience to form connections with each of them before their worlds are toppled and everything becomes a haze of overwhelming grief and violence.
Filmed on location near Lauriston in Victoria, director Matthew Holmes and cinematographer Cable Williams manage to turn familiar suburban streets and scenic bushland into a harrowing and isolated landscape, the perfect surroundings for David and Aaron to enact their ruthless punishment.
As an exploration of masculinity and morality, the film avoids the pitfalls of the common revenge fantasy. This is not I Spit on Your Grave territory, the violence and torture are hardly gore for gore’s sake, instead there’s an inner conflict taking place between victim and abuser — titles which shift from character to character depending on the moment.
While the lion’s share of screentime goes to the three leads, the character at the centre of it all is Stephanie (Nicole Pastor). David’s wife, Aaron’s sister, and Troy’s victim, it’s Stephanie’s fate that ties everyone together, and yet given the structure of the film, we never get to know her outside of who she was to each of the men in her life. Too often, we see women in film made to suffer, their power stripped away, and their pain used to motivate the male hero into action, however that doesn’t seem to be the intention here. Stephanie may not be given a voice, but her presence is felt woven throughout every scene. There’s no glory in this for David or Aaron, no hero’s journey that will end with them walking triumphant into the sunset, nor does the script seek to exploit or titillate. Holmes avoids relying on twists or jump-scares to raise the tension, instead there’s an unflinching viscerality that neither the audience nor the protagonists are able to look away from as they’re forced to confront the unfathomable depths of what each man has lost and wonder exactly how much more they’ll each be willing to sacrifice before the night ends.
