Red Hill

For quite some time now, amongst the 1000's of movies I have watched, I noticed a certain ennui to my movie watching, as other people have said, this has been done before, most notably in American westerns. The wronged man comes back to reap his vengeance on the evil-doers. If this had been strictly formulaic and badly acted and filmed i would not have seen it all the way through to the ending. However, I was pleasantly entertained, I don't think it was too obvious a plot, it had me guessing for a while. The escaped convict looked suitably elemental and Ryan Kwanten as the young cop on his first bloody day in the outback played it well. Yes, there were some strange parts to the movie, although I just found the inclusion of the wild animal an amusing aside, and not to be taken too seriously. The score was good, the atmosphere was suitably bleak and a lot of it filmed at night to add to the tension. I think people expect too much these days, no this was not Unforgiven, but for a low budget movie out of Australia I thought this was a good remake of the classic revenge western. Certainly worth a viewing if you love westerns, or if you like revenge plots. For a Sunday afternoon, you could do a whole lot worse.

Red Hill follows a police officer who recently transferred from the city to the rural town of Red Hill for the health of his pregnant wife. On his first day, however, an escaped convict threatens the apparent peace in the town.

I loved this movie. The camera work was excellent,the town's characters had-character, and the tense sections were pulled off just right. The main direction the movie would take was discernible early on, but I never knew what would happen next. It played like a western and had a wonderful small town feel.

I would recommend this movie to anyone. It was gripping, fun, and had touching moments. Excellent!

RED HILL is a pretty decent Australian movie that will win no awards for originality but which tells its story in a straightforward and effective manner. I have to say that I do enjoy watching these Aussie outings as they're a breath of fresh air in comparison to more traditional Hollywood fare.

Fresh-faced Ryan Kwanten stars as a rookie cop posted to a rural town (yeah, how many times have we gone through that set-up before?) who soon finds himself having a very bad day when a criminal busts out of jail and comes gunning for revenge. The bad guy is a little better characterised than most, and I enjoyed the way that the lines between good and bad are increasingly blurred as the narrative goes on.

The main problem RED HILL has to face is its own predictability. The narrative is lean and spare, and it's all very familiar; we've seen such stories play out over and over again. Thus it must rely on style to win out over the less than sparkling substance, and it's only partially successful. The direction, acting and camera-work are all solid rather than spectacular. The film held me, but there's nothing much to remember about it afterwards.

The plot was too cheesy and predictable.

The spaghetti western theme and lone wolf-bad guy story line could have been much more interesting.

There were so many people who could have easily taken the bad guy out, but didn't for various lame reasons.

There was one scene where the bad guy gets hit by a car, and doesn't even have a scratch on him. Then in the the same scene, some hapless victim unloads all of his bullets into the bad guy from about 8 feet - and MISSES!!!! C'mon now.

My wife and I gave the movie about 30 minutes and gave up.

It was too bad since we both enjoy Ryan Kwanten in True Blood.

There are a couple of times when there's what I judge an unnecessary jump in the plot line to accommodate something improbable in an otherwise realistic situation. They're minor flaws that actually brought a smile to my face rather than a groan, but they seem a little out of place even though this is an Australian film and they're famous for that kind of inclusion.

It didn't ruin my evening but it would have improved the film to have passed on them. This is an easily understood plot: a cop needs to get to a peaceful town in order that his wife can successfully carry their baby. Naturally, things go wrong his first day when a convicted murderer heads to the remote town to wreak havoc on his accusers. There little flashy gunplay or inspirational heroics, but the film will grow on you because it's very human and understandable.

All roles are artfully rendered by the cast and there's the constant feeling that you are there in a remote but beautiful area of Australia.