I believe that right now, the best films come out of Australia. My introduction to Aussie cinema was quite some time ago with the cult classics Crocodile Dundee and The Mad Max trilogy. However, this one is different. Australian cinema rose up in the early 2000’s with Andrew Dominik’s “Chopper”, John Hillcoat’s “The Proposition” five years later, and more recently David Michod’s “Animal Kingdom”, which cleaned house at Sundance last year. In Red Hill, Ryan Kwanten (of True Blood fame) plays a young city cop Shane Cooper, who transfers to a small town ran by an old-school sheriff – Old Bill (Steve Bisley). On his first day on the new job things don’t go so smooth for Shane, and soon after a TV station breaks the news of an escaped convict headed for town, he finds himself between a rock and a hard place.
Very soon we find out the escaped convict, Jimmy Conway (a phenomenal performance by Tommy Lewis), has unfinished business in town with Old Bill – the man who put him behind bars. Reminiscent of the Coen Brother’s masterpiece – No Country for Old Man, Patrick Hughes’s genre-bender debut delivers on more than one level, as both a suspenseful noir-thriller with great pacing and mood, and as a classic revenge story with a fresh touch, and deeper undertones of political criticism on the treatment of indigenous populations.
A thrill ride worthy of classic American westerns and neo-noirs of decades past ensues, combined with stellar performances from the main cast and stunning photography, make Red Hill an enjoyable Western-Thriller.
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