After watching the superb "ripped from the headlines" Aussie Noir mini-series Deep Water recently,I read reviews by a fellow IMDber. Nearing the end of a page,I noticed a tantalising Aussie Noir title.Finding the name of the flick familiar,I found out that it was about to air on TV! Which led to me going down the mystery road.The plot:Returning to his old small town where his ex-wife and daughter live, aboriginal Detective Jay Swan is sent to investigate the body of an aboriginal teenage girl found at an "unofficial pit-stop." Learning that her name was Julie Mason,Swan finds out that Mason was an addict,who was a hooker that had sex with truckers at the stop. Searching for info from Mason's pals,Swan tracks down her phone,and finds messages from his daughter. Whilst trying to find out what his daughter is caught up in,Swan begins to notice that a number of his fellow officers appear very keen in stopping from going down a road that gets to the heart of the case,and the town.View on the film:Retaining the way he could give a calm situation an underlying sense of menace in the first Matrix flick, Hugo Weaving gives a chilling performance as cop Johnno,whose "friendly" small-talk and shoulder taps to Swan crackle with a sinister unease,whilst Ryan Kwanten (minus his fake Deep South accent from True Blood) gives a creepy performance as Pete Bailey,with Kwanten using space to open the uncomfortable mood between Bailey and Swan. Gliding in wearing cowboy boots and hat, Aaron Pedersen gives a marvellous performance as lone Noir "cowboy" Jay Swan,as Pedersen gives Swan a Noir gravitas over the horrific treatment of fellow aboriginals,with a rebellious kick to clear the town of all the outlaws standing on the road.Stroking the brittle Noir tension with coiled crane shots scanning the decayed wilderness for figures wanting Swan to not uncover the full mystery,writer/director/editor/cinematographer/composer Ivan Sen breaths unrelenting dread into the landscape,with lingering looks at Swan's face displaying the shot of anxiety cast across his face,as Swan finds himself a Noir loner in a town that wants to keep its mystery.Hitting Swan with bullets of racism,the screenplay by Sen exposes the mistreatment of aboriginals in its rawest form,where people who live in run-down housing projects are treated like dirt,and Swan's aboriginal roots are mercilessly leaned on for threats. Pulling Mason's body from the roadside,Swan drives down a cracking Noir mystery Thriller. Limiting the violence to short rounds of bloodshed,Sen brilliantly uses the scorching hot setting to give the dialogue a heaviness that is pulled by the murky underbelly that Swan finds under the mystery road.

Each time I see another Australian film I'm convinced to NEVER visit Down Undah! What a pit of vipers! Talk about low-lives! Everyone lives in a trailer or dumpy tin roofed shack out in the boons with wild dogs, alcoholic mothers/father, drug addict siblings and friends, gambling, prostitution and winos. They mistreat ALL animals. They defecate where they eat. There are vermin everywhere--bugs, snakes, rabid mongrels. They give you that nasty dumb stare when you ask a question and then they use sarcasm answering and talk about you in the third person in front of their cronies! It's like bad high school! Who'd care to visit? It's amazing these creeps stay but I suppose the ole 'dog that I know is better...' works here too. Anyway, entertaining film with nice pace of action and some surprise but in the end he goes back to the addict shrew of an ex-wife and insolent whorish teenage daughter to try to make amends for his neglect of years ago. After you meet the wife and bitch child, you won't wonder why he left!?

Jay Swann (Aaron Pedersen) returns from the big city to take up the job of detective in a small outback town where he has grown up. His first case is that of a young Aboriginal girl who is found murdered. His boss makes it clear that he will be 'flying solo' as all his men are busy with other seemingly more important things.He is of mixed race and seems to be both outside his native community and not wholly accepted by the all white police force. He starts to dig for clues and finds that for a small outback town there seems to be an awful lot going on, from drugs to prostitution and he is never quite sure where anyone stands - including his fellow officers. He also has to deal with the remnants of his relationship with an estranged teenage daughter.This is a really good thriller and it kept me guessing right to the end, it did seem to have a few signposts as to who is Mr Guilty, but it is all cleverly done in a laid back yet calculated way. Pedersen as Swann puts in a rather good performance but there are some very entertaining support roles - especially the coroner who all add to the flavour. There is also a fair bit of barely veiled racism added to the mix. The locations are all perfect - so much so that you might miss out how much care has gone into some of the shots. This though is one of those films to see once because once you know the reveal then the real mystery is gone. Still a thriller from down under that had me gripped till the very end - recommended.

There is a class of film lovers who want to concede and live the eras of film making. Even though they were born in situations separated by time and space, they feel nostalgic about the early and subsequent industrial era diffusion (and its effects) brought in thru history, literature and cinema: The periods when homesteaders entered Dodge City, when London started getting crawled in by villagers or when families from a big city relocated to newly planned adjoining suburbs. If you identify with this description, you've probably got a treasure here.19th century Wild West lives in 21st century Bush! Not that it's uncreative; the history of filmography is etched in this 2 hours intelligent crime story. Referencing the classic westerns to earliest neo-noirs to recent crime features, the unknown director theoretically beautifies the Film making.The score is as quiet as the life itself while as intriguing as its characters. Unbelievably well photographed! Aerial shots and silhouette wides suit the mood of terror in an uncivil, dusty town with principal actors having a gem to showcase their worth. Screen writing concerned me a bit but that doesn't stop me from saying that if given a worldwide interest, I'm sure Australia will unbland the perceptions of Australianness and allow us into new realms of cinematic and cultural entertainment.