wayfarer4

This is a marginal movie, easily forgettable among a large string of low budget movies trying to cash in on the early American interest in Australia in the mid-1980's. If it has a true failing, it is in being considered a comedy, which I feel it isn't. It is closer to a drama, a story of a supremely confident man being thrust into a world he has no real understanding of.

The acting is actually quite good, and the odd little twists that his journey takes are truly enjoyable, but it gets bogged down in clashes of dueling pride, of a lack of even the most minimal attempts to understand the Australian culture, and a penchant for using nudity to move the movie along. There are numerous questionable characters, people that seem to be in the movie simply to provide a momentary diversion from a real plot. It does manage to steer around several bits of stereotyping, such as presenting an Aborigine musician who never flinches at being patronized, even flippantly handing over a business card advertising his services.

The visuals are wonderful, including one of the most spectacular sunrise shots across the Outback. The movie does a wonderful job of showing bits of the mixture that Australia is, including a roving patrolman riding a camel, and trying to address the great question - "What is the pure Australian experience?". If they had found a way to fill the movie with more of these moments, it might have been far better.

I'd recommend this movie for one of those nights when nothing else seems right. It's a decent time passer, but shouldn't be taken too seriously.

In all honesty, I would have loved this movie far more if I weren't old enough to have seen the original Snake Plissken film, Escape From New York, on it's first run in the theaters. Being a fan of early Cyberpunk and apocalyptic films, that one was the truly great film.

This movie is good, in it's own way. Most of the cast is known B-movie and character bit actors, people that I didn't have to strain myself to recognize. The premise is good, the action scenes are fun, the various lines have some great moments. But several of the big special effects scenes are weak, and the script is almost an entire copy of the original. While I haven't done it myself, I have heard that you can play New York and LA side by side, and have almost the same general events happening at the same time, down to where and how he gets injured. The only nod to this is having the police recognize Plissken's planned duplicity from his actions in the earlier movie.

I would agree that the ending is a great one, especially the last scene, which I won't describe here. If you haven't seen it, this scene alone is worth the cost of buying this movie. (If you can't find it for less than seven and a half dollars, you're not looking in the right places.) But I'd make a point of having Escape From New York also.

My final critique? It's a decent film, but if I had been able to recommend Kurt Russell doing a sequel to one of his John Carpenter films, I'd have voted for Big Trouble In Little China first, The Thing second, then Escape From New York.