Assassinato Em Blackrock

As a lover of Aussie films ( and being one myself ) I found this to be entertaining and not a little disturbing.

On the flip side though, I've got to say I really am not a Lawrence Breuls fan. He's got no screen presence whatsoever and is pretty much the low point throughout the movie.

Good to see David Field, Leeanna Walsman. Rebecca Smart snd Simon Lyndon doing justice to their roles.

Linda Cropper plays a good role as Jared's mum. I'm wondering if Jared's interest in Ricko was totally best buddy or if he had the old pillow biting urge. Whatever. He's just a gutless knob.

On the topic of what would I do if I witnessed a gang rape of a friend, would I do anything to stop it?

You bet I would, and I wouldn't be giving no murderer a send off on a surf board.

What would you do if you witnessed some of your friends committing a terrible crime? What would you do if you saw a friend of yours being gang raped? Would you have sat there and watched?. Horrified but able to do nothing. Or would you have helped? This is the dilemma faced by Jared played by Laurence Breuls. This gritty Australian drama explores not only Jared's reactions and feelings about this crime but all of the victim's friends feelings as well. Jared is shattered by the fact that he did not help his friend Leigh when she needed him and even more horrified to find out that his best mate Ricko finished off the job - raping Leigh yet again and then killing her. This movie details how each friend came to grips with this tragic but too often everyday crime.

Director Steven Vidler's film of the Nick Enright play is emotionally weightless. Vidler seems so concerned to make it relevant to the teen generation it's about that he has made what reads as an extended music video complete with a loud soundtrack, an abundance of surfing footage, orange tinting and shorthand editing. It's shocking to see the indifference he applies to the character of the girl who is raped and murdered though this superficiality extends to all the characters.

The material originated as Property of the Clan for the stage but Enright reworked it for a larger theater company, doubling the cast and I feel losing the purity of his intention. This re-drafting is exemplified by creating a cancer crisis which really has no impact on the base story.

Enright's comment on male aggression which is meant to explain the violence is echoed in the protagonist Jared (Laurence Breals) delivering a climactic speech about `mates is all you got' though it rings false when he is shown to have an interest in photography and a girlfriend.

The actors have little to work with and Vidler winds them up to a level of hysteria so that the strine accents and performances by Simon Lyndon, Chris Haywood and David Field are simply ludicrous. Breals performance is all about his hair and Linda Cropper as his mother is stranded. Vidler thankfully deprives us of footage of the murder but repeats flashbacks of the rape as Jared's conscience, though his long range witnessing becomes closeup memory.

I bought this film on DVD for 1 UK pound and have watched it over and over again a great story handled with care and told from no one in particulars point of view. OK so its not going to win any Oscars for having the biggest budget but i cant recommend this enough a truly under rated piece of Aussie cinema. If your looking for something different rent it or buy it i imagine you can pick it up cheap enough anywhere in the free world.

A lot of great photography and beautiful Australian scenery great direction great script.

also a ton of great music (austrailia and new Zealand have the best undiscovered bands music scenes and movies)

I am so glad that I am not the girl who was called "Cherie" in the movie as the above comments on "how it is supposed to make us think" etc, is irrelevant. She was Tracey Warners (Leigh Lee's) best friend and suffered along with the rest of the innocents portrayed in Blackrock. I lived 5 minutes away from Stockton (which is the "mythical" town in which Blackrock is set), and I remember this murder happening at the time. It is unfair to judge this movie on "the ideals" we were meant to gain from watching it as it was a factual encounter. It is too bad if you don't "get" this film, as it is not meant to be "got". It happened. As for the characters not evolving - well, you will have to take that up with the people on who they were depicting. I am sure that they are sorry that their everyday lives do not summarise the lives YOU think they should have led.