Last Cab to Darwin

I actually signed up to IMDb just to write this review. Having stumbled upon this film by accident, I couldn't have been more moved. Michael Caton delivers an Oscar worthy performance that had me in tears throughout. In fact the entire cast deliver a completely immersive experience that transported me to the Australian outback, in particular the actors who played Polly and Tilly.

And there is no doubt the performances would have shone so brightly without an incredible script. The story is one of both joy and sadness and despite the fact I hate to cry I just could not stop watching.

I am a huge fan of the film Australia because of the incredible scenery, which is partly why I decided to give this (which I heard nothing about) a try. I was not disappointed. Everything about this film is beautiful.

"Drink your beer and shut up" is the essence of male culture in Australia. "Mateship" is the term for it. Rex, a 70 year old cab driver from Broken Hill in New South Wales, finds – as he must have already felt for a long time - that mateship is a double edged sword. He is diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer and can't bring himself to tell his friends or the woman he secretly loves. "There's no one else," he tells his doctor. Instead he drives his cab 2,000 plus miles across the Australian outback to Darwin where there is a newly opened and experimental euthanasia clinic. "Why," asks the woman who might have been his wife "did you not tell me?!" "You never asked," answers Rex, matter-of-factly. Rex has never seen the sea, among other things, and his eyes are opened to new scenery and people. His nearness to death is an opportunity to reassess his life and, like Odysseus, for adventure.

While much of the film is drama and serious in nature, it is also light-hearted. A mechanic tells Rex to keep his fluids up while driving in the desert, and Rex promptly goes into the bar for beer. One theme is the plight of Australia's aborigines. Whites took away much of their culture and stories, and as a result, who they are. The acting is really wonderful, especially the lead who is a veteran of Australian films and television and well-loved for such roles for his entire life. I love the ornate and wonderful arts and crafts homes as well as the scenery of Australia. The film is loosely based on a true story. The only real drawbacks are that it is somewhat predictable and short. Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2015.

What a terrific film on all levels. It's been released for a few weeks now, but drew a reasonable sized crowd on a Sunday night on the back of strong press reviews. I think it's going to continue to pull in crowds on the strength of word of mouth recommendations. Including mine.

Generally I'm not a fan of Australian films but this one is great. Starting with the cast. Michael Caton was excellent and had surprising depths in his performance that I never expected him to have. The only weak link in the cast is Jackie Weaver, despite having "Academy Award Nominee" forever attached to her name now. Even though many of the support cast were not well known actors, only Weaver's acting was poor. She looked like "I'm acting this" with nearly every line she delivered. The young guy who played Tilly was fantastic - and surprisingly convincing in his one emotionally vulnerable scene.

Secondly, the script. I heard one radio reviewer say that the dialogue by 'blackfellas' in movies is usually very obviously written by white writers, and rarely rings 'true'. Similarly, writers who want to shoehorn Australian colloquialisms into a movie or stage play often do it in a very clumsy way. But in Last Cab to Darwin, the dialogue does ring true and the writers are to be congratulated.

Next, the themes. This is not a 90 minute 'quickie' of a movie. It has real depth, not just on the issue of euthanasia, but also on black/white prejudices in country Australia, and the movie doesn't skirt around indigenous social problems either.

Then there's the scenery. Spectacular. And I bet the places featured along Rex's road trip enjoy an upturn in visitor numbers in the next year or so as a result of this film.

Finally there's the humour. It is quintessentially Australian dry humour and it's quick and subtle and sprinkled throughout. The best line is the one about the dog's name. Still making me chuckle even now - as much as anything because you didn't see it coming at the time and Michael Caton's delivery was perfect.

As Molly Meldrum would say: do yourself a favour and go and see it.

A widely recognised characteristic of Australian film is our capacity to find humour in almost any subject. When people from other places try to describe our national character, they use words like larrikin, irreverent, or iconoclastic, meaning we like to laugh at ourselves and the sacred cows in our patch. So how do you laugh at dying, let alone make an Aussie comedy out of a road film that has euthanasia as its destination?

Aussie icons Michael Caton and Jackie Weaver provide the larrikin mix of gravitas and humour needed to make a deadly serious issue bearable as we share the journey and the end-of-life issues facing the terminally ill cab driver Rex. He has never been outside Broken Hill and must drive 3,000 kms to Darwin to be the first person who is legally assisted to die by Weaver who plays a feminine version of Dr Death (as euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke was called). Like in all road films, he crosses iconic landscapes and encounters bad things. He also meets some beautiful characters like the Pommie backpacker Julie who becomes his nurse, a mischievous Aboriginal Peter Pan-type called Tilly, and Polly, the Aboriginal neighbour and secret lover he left behind but calls regularly. The back story of our nation's inept relationship with the traditional owners of our land frames much of Rex's journey, just as it continues to frame our evolving national identity.

While it is an entertaining Aussie yarn, that's not its only purpose. Superb acting by Caton in particular brings you up close and very personal to the emotional and practical challenges of picking a time and place to die with dignity. The film can get heavy-handed in the way it loads political and moral messages into the story; for example, when Tilly yells at Rex "You think its brave to let someone else do your dying for you?" we are confronted with different ways of looking at assisted dying. Rex makes it to Darwin only to find medical and legal confusion, so things do not turn out as expected. For some, it's a distracting edit to have Rex back home in minutes when it took half the film to get there, but perhaps this reflects the truncation of time when the time has come. Be warned: this is a film that can mess with your head about the complex issue of assisted dying, but it's an Aussie gem well worth the effort.

Michael Caton has been a fixture on Australian screens since the 1970's thanks to TV shows like 'The Sullivans' and 'Packed to the Rafters'. His voice is quintessentially Aussie and his face and personality have made him a household name. His casting for this film is perfect and I can't even imagine another actor as Rex; so perfect is Caton, and such a gift for an actor who has mostly been the family uncle or grandad. Here he is, front and centre; stoic, three dimensional and instantly likable. Director Jeremy Sims, himself a TV and film actor, has elicited an award worthy performance from the veteran, but also helps young actor Mark Coles Smith as Tilly, make one of the year's best supporting turns. The camera just loves his wicked grin and his playful, easy charm. The film pulls no punches with some of the content surrounding both the indigenous characters such as Tilly, or the circumstances and realities of euthanasia. I was disappointed with Jacki Weaver here: she never looks or sounds comfortable with her character, and that is unfortunate as it is a linchpin to the film's trajectory, but Caton's 'Rex' is so unforgettable, that he carries even the weaker elements of the movie. Beautifully photographed and capturing the visceral parts of the landscape and the terrain, 'Last Cab To Darwin' is not a perfect film, but an enjoyable and significant one, and a rewarding one for its leading actor.