Mystery Road

There is much to commend in this outback-set crime drama from director, writer and cinematographer, Ivan Sen.

The first scene sets up the whole film most deftly: its depiction of the magnitude of the land at sunset coupled with the place name, Massacre Creek, instantly makes it clear that the vastness of the Australian terrain and inglorious, largely unrepented historic events will frame what follows.

Aaron Pedersen plays the police detective Jay Swan, an Aboriginal returning from 'the city' to his small and extremely isolated home town after a 10 year absence. He is estranged from his former wife, now an alcoholic making a hash of raising their daughter, and also the community in which he was raised. Not fully accepted by the white community either, he is the classic outsider forced to go it alone.

Swan is assigned to the case of a murdered Aboriginal teenage girl whose body is found in a state of some decay quite some time after her violent end. It probably won't come as a great shock to find that the rest of the local constabulary, all white and male, are not only indifferent to the crime but hostile to its investigation, impeding Swan at every juncture. As Swan battles on uncovering corruption, drug dealing and civic sanctioned child prostitution, he starts to shed light on the town's inherent racism and misogyny – there appears to be no one in the town of any authority who is either black or female.

The film is a modern twist on the western genre: the lone lawman coming to town quietly determined to see right is done. It is the sort of role Gary Cooper, John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart all handled with ease 60 years ago. Aaron Pedersen is a worthy successor to these Hollywood greats, compelling in his restrained performance, giving just a hint of the angst beneath his calm exterior but always in control of himself. In the main, the supporting cast is also strong – especially Hugo Weaving as a police officer of dubious integrity and an alluded to murky past.

Like all classic westerns the film's denouement is a good old-fashioned shoot-out. This extended scene is particularly well handled by Sen with tight direction and camera work – although his cinematography throughout the film is praiseworthy.

The film has a few flaws. Early scene dialogue giving the backstory is rather stilted – though this quickly settled down; the minor character of a buffoonish local newspaper reporter was both unconvincing and irrelevant – it was as if Sen felt, wrongly, that his film needed a little comic relief. And I was surprised at the amount of drugs uncovered in such a very small town. I'm no expert but I'd have thought the quantity shown would be enough to supply the whole of Melbourne – including its nearby rock festivals – for a year.

Ultimately, many of the film's plot strands were left hanging which was, ostensibly, rather untidy. But on this, I'm giving Ivan Sen the benefit of the doubt. There was no neat resolution to his film or the crimes it depicts, because there is, as yet, no resolution to the social issues he raised in a non-preachy manner.

The negative reviews baffled me and the positive ones can't do Mystery Road enough justice.

From the opening until the dramatic end, the movie is a captivating tour de force. Coming from the U.S. I'm completely ignorant of the racial biases apparently at play in the Australian Outback, and this film subtly puts them on display without having them become overbearing or preachy.

The acting is tops and Aaron Pederson does his subject well, playing him with confidence and understatement. Hugo Weaving's turn as Johnno is also a well-crafted part, not to mention all of the minor roles, all of which came across as completely believable. It's easy to say the Australian landscape had just as large a role as any of the cast, and it read its lines perfectly.

Although there were a few parts where I found it difficult to understand what was said as a result of the local accent, there was no missing the message that was delivered. Again, from beginning to end the movie hit all the right notes, and even its climatic ending delivered a superbly satisfying denouement to the whole.

I've come to appreciate films not produced in the U.S. because they all too often are so formulaic with shallowly cast characters. Mystery Road represents among the best of what I look for in a movie produced anywhere and is tops among such "foreign" films. It is definitely one to catch.

As usual with most Australian films, the story line is very different. The casualness of the style with the weight of the film being presented by the vision, missed telling me what was happening a couple of times. Left the cinema still answering the questions asked. Did feel I needed a bit more in the way of answers given to me though. Acting was excellent , very quickly lost my expectation of known characters roles & embraced the new story rapidly. The structure of town, people & their lives were simply & beautifully presented. The use of aerials helped cement characters & culture of small outback town wonderfully, as did the simple style of presenting different cultural landscapes within the one time. Great movie, will be watching again

I must say that I am fascinated by the Australian outback, so this movie immediately had my attention. There have been many good Australian films to come out in recent years(The Proposition, Animal Kingdom, and Snowtown come to mind) and Mystery Road is another quality film to add to that list. With some unbelievable cinematography and good to very good acting throughout, Mystery Road was an inherently different take on the mystery genre that I quite enjoyed.

The overall tone of Mystery Road is what sets it apart from other movies of similar type. From the camera shots all the way down to the dialogue, everything is depicted with realism. There is a real awkwardness to the conversations between characters in this movie, almost like you would see in real life. While obviously still scripted, the way Ivan Sen went about depicting these scenes made for a unique perspective. From cinematographic standpoint, this film is stunning. Utilizing both top down angles of the town and low-angled sunset shots, Sen really brought the outback to life quite beautifully. This film really reminds me of the Coen Brother's No Country for Old Men, both in tone and the way the scenes were shot. Also like No Country for Old Men, Mystery Road features a soundtrack nearly devoid of music. This adds a somber, gritty feel to the already stoic nature Mystery Road portrays.

The acting in this movie is pretty fantastic throughout. Some of the supporting characters weren't as convincing, but they played a rather minor role in the overall scheme of things. This movie focuses heavily on the main character, and rightfully so, as he's a total bad-ass. You can read the synopsis above so I won't waste time here. I must say, however, that Jay Swan(played by Aaron Pedersen) is pretty enjoyable to follow as he attempts to unravel the mystery of a dead girl in his hometown. Mystery Road shines a spotlight on race relations in Australia as well, and with Jay being an aboriginal detective, he faces a lot of adversity throughout the film. It is interesting to see this as an American, since we are not often exposed to such things that happen in Australia. There always seems to be a layer of tension below the courtesy between Jay and his fellow townsmen, either due to him being an aboriginal himself or because he is a detective.

Now to the negatives, which there are a few. First, this movie starts out quite slow. I almost gave up on it as I fell asleep twice in the first 40 minutes. Had it not been for the fantastic shots of the outback and a few intriguing individuals, I may not have made it through. Things begin to pick up around the halfway mark but this will most definitely turn some people off. There are also a few plot holes, but I won't give them away as they may ruin some of the ending. Many of the characters are sadly under-developed as well, which detracts from the overall intrigue of some very interesting individuals. While Hugo Weaving was quite good and his character interesting, he role was particularly undeveloped in my humble opinion. Instead, Sen decided to focus more on Jay, which is OK for the most part, but it would have been nice to see some other characters get more screen time.

Overall, this movie offers some fantastic shots of the rural outback of Australia with an interesting plot to boot. Things do start off slow but it also, quite literally, ends with a bang. This ending is not one to miss, and has one of the most impressive gun battles I have seen perhaps ever. If you are a fan of gritty mystery movies, definitely check out Mystery Road.

This film was a pleasant surprise for me among the mass of today's Hollywood productions. The movie is a bit different in its rhythm and mood from as we are expected from its genre. It tries to combine the western and the thriller style, and I think it has succeeded.

The movie narrates a story of a lonely detective who tries to hunt down the murderer of a young girl in the remote and sparsely inhabited territory of Australia. But the movie is intended to be real, and makes a great effort in order to achieve that. It tries to show us the everyday life of a lonesome ranger in a realistic way. Thus, it could give us a totally different picture than the Hollywood action-stuffed blockbusters can provide.

We can hardly see a single gun in use throughout the whole movie, but somehow it manages to attract the attention of the audience. The newer and newer details of the crime are revealed in a nicely right pace. Sometimes, during the interrogation of a person I've already known what the detective's following question would be. But not the teeming clichés are responsible for that (because there were any), but the adequate atmosphere what the movie could have created, because it's able to involve the audience and encourage them to investigate along with the protagonist.

At the beginning I felt the fact a bit weird, that almost every single member of the town were totally unfriendly with the detective, even a few years old tiny kid, who was brave enough to announce without batting an eyelid that he'd take the detective's life. But later I realized, that I wouldn't be really happy too, if a ranger wanted to ask me a few question about a murder. However, not only these people were raw to the protagonist, but the other policeman were pretty arrogant either. We can feel the tension in almost every moment of an interrogation, because the conversations are usually interrupted with awkward silence, because the detective could hardly pull out the valuable information out of the people. That's why the dialgoues are occasionally a bit silly, but there are some moments when they're quite funky and gripping.

Nevertheless, the actors did a fine job, as far as some of them had only little opportunity to prevail on the silver screen. I admit, that it wasn't Hugo Weaving's most outstanding performance, as we could see him acting far better in the Matrix or in The Lord of the Rings. But I couldn't blame him for that, because his character was really obnoxious in this movie. I could have accused him at his first appearance on the screen, like almost any other people in the movie, except the protagonist.

We can hardly hear any music or soundtrack throughout the movie (only one or two), but it simply draws benefits from that, because the movie could create a much more depressing atmosphere int hat way. The film could perfectly visualize in front of our eyes, that the detectives don't have as fast-paced life as we could experience that in the high- budget Hollywood movie, but they are much slower, tedious, tiresome and difficult. The film owns a nearly 2 hours long runtime, thanks to the fact in part, that it has taken up the conventional towed style of the western genre. There are some moment, when we could see the characters looking at each for a quite long time period without moving or saying a word. But it had to be like this! So no worries!

If You'd like to experience a life-like investigation in a realistically implemented environment in the company of a logically built up storyline, than I can bravely recommend You this movie! Buti f You wanna see some action scenes speeding by right after other, and You don't wanna get slowed down, then this movie will not be your cup of tea.

Thanks for spending your precious free time with reading my review! Hope you liked it!