Shane Cooper (Ryan Kwanten) moves to the sleepy rural town of Red Hill with his pregnant wife Alice (Claire van der Boom). It's his first day as a local cop. His new boss Old Bill is dismissive of his new recruit for a previous incident where he failed to shoot. Jimmy Conway escapes from prison after murdering his wife and arrested by Old Bill. Shane stops a car with a scared elderly couple and then confronted by Jimmy Conway. Shane tries to surrender and falls off the cliff.This has a good gritty western feel. It revels in the brutal violent desolation tones. All of that is great. I have a big problem with one scene when Shane first confronts Jimmy Conway. The Mexican standoff is ridiculous. Shane surrendering to him is also pretty bad although it's playing into the character. This movie needs to start with a violent shootout and this scene is very disappointing. Shane can fall off the cliff as he runs away from Jimmy shooting at him. It's such a badly staged scene that it takes away some of the early intensity. It should have been an exciting action start. Otherwise, I love the style and tone of this movie.

It starts off as though it's going to be a good thriller involving the mental town locals but then turns out to be a classic revenge thriller. Classic might sound as though I am praising it, trust me I'm not. The amount of 'why didn't he just..' moments in this film is unreal. Most of these guys actually allow this madman to kill them. There is even a scene when one of the town 'guards' is aiming down his scope ready to fire then the villain 'Jimmy' actually spins and shoots the guy square in the forehead. You couldn't make it up. And where on earth does the panther fit in? I've actually took time out of my night to tell everyone not to waste their lives on this movie. I'd actually give it 2 for the laugh I got at some points (I can assure you it was not meant).

To fully appreciate Red Hill, I think you need to be an Australian. Not that that means you won't enjoy it if you're not. Nonetheless, there is definitely an unmistakable 'difference' from your typical western genre thriller movie that can only really be attributed to the Australian psyche.Having so said, I agree with several other reviewers that Red Hill is well worth the watch. Ryan Kwanten played the part of Shane Cooper, the new-cop-in-town well - although I wondered how long he had been a cop in the city because he was a bit timid to start with even though he had a past incident that framed him as maybe too compassionate to be a hard- nosed law officer. He was clearly a human being who cared and also happened to be a cop! Steve Bisley was every bit the "this is MY town" local sheriff (except that, in this modern version, he's a police inspector who just thinks he's the Wyatt Earp of Red Hill) and plays the part brilliantly.Then there's the protagonist Jimmy Conway excellently played by Tommy Lewis, a Northern Territory Aboriginal from way back. What other reviewers have totally failed to understand is that Tommy plays Jimmy exactly as he would have been in real life - all action and no talk! The make-up crew did an excellent job on him too.The plot is a bit "Blue Heelerish" (for you non-Aussies, that was a very popular TV series set in much the same environment as Red Hill) except that likable Sergeant Tom Croydon was very different from Steve Bisley's Bill.I would have liked to see a bit more development of the wild animal side-plot which I feel was left a bit up in the air (maybe there's a sequel planned to deal with that). All-in-all, a good movie that was pretty true to form (given the true circumstances - which aren't revealed until the very end).

I tried to like this film but it requires too much suspension of disbelief. First and foremost the lead character "Shayne" survives falling off a cliff and ends up with innumerable injuries. We see him profusely bleeding along the waistline. He ends up walking long distances while injured yet still has the ability to run like a rabbit when gunfire erupts. There also seems to be a problem with most of the armed men in this movie as they never take a shot at the heavy even when they have the element of surprise with them. One poor bastard even squeezes off 6 shots at a distance of 15 feet and never hits the heavy. Add to the mix that although this film happens in a small rural Aussie town, aside from the few principals, nobody else is ever seen. Keep in mind that automatic gun fire, car wrecks and explosions are occurring right in the middle of Main Street but nobody even goes to a window to see that is happening. There is talk of "a big storm brewing" but aside from the allegory to the story it fails to materialize. I guess all the town folk are hold up waiting for the big storm to blow over. Cliché after cliché leads to an ending you can see coming from the beginning of the film. A real letdown.