The actual events of what happened after Alexander Pearce's first escape from the prison colony in Tasmania, according to Pearce himself, are shown in this movie. It's probably somewhat too slow-moving for some young viewers, but I was impressed by how realistic it is. The characters are believable. The direction is meticulous. The acting is excellent, in many situations an actor's expression reveals feelings of uncertainty, confusion, guilt, fear, horror or misery. The cinematography showing the Tasmanian wilderness is visually splendid.Do not expect a typical slasher/horror film, this movie is much more intelligently written and directed. The film's intention is to tell a story, rather than to frighten.

I've been wanting to watch this for a few years and finally got around to it last night (on Stan). I didn't know much about the story apart from the setting and that there was some cannibalism involved.Contrary to what IMDb says about "Australia's most notorious convict", I have lived in Australia for 20 years and had never heard of the main protagonist. That was just as well since I didn't know how the story was going unfold. That I had never seen any of the actors before also contributed to the realism.While there are plenty of films about the dark ages of Europe and the pioneering days of North America, there are not enough films about the Australia's murky past. It's generally well-known that Irish lads might be sent here for petty crimes, but it's not well understood nowadays - when Australia is one of the most desirable places to live in the world - how inhospitable it was when white men first arrived. That the film depicts this was, in itself, sufficient reason for me to watch it in its entirety. (There are plenty more thoughtful stories that could be told about this era.)I enjoyed the slow burning pace of the plot, and the fact that it was based on a real story, but what impressed me the most was the cinematography. Scene after scene is beautifully framed and colo(u)red, and often depicts the insignificance of man in the vast wilderness. I'd watch it again just for the scenery.The acting and story itself were enthralling. I don't envy the cast for filming in such conditions! I only wish that I had had the opportunity to display subtitles for the English as well as the Gaelic as some of the phraseology and accents were hard to catch.There was a scene in the second half where the picture quality deteriorated for a minute or two but that may have been down to a bottleneck in the bandwidth.I was in two minds as the credits rolled about the beginning and end of the film. It would have been more "Hollywood" to set up the characters a bit early on so that we could understand their motivations. Similarly, it would have been very "Hollywood" to show how the main protagonist ultimately came out of the wilderness and made his tale public. Having slept on it - short of creating a film twice as long - I'm glad at the choices made by the director. The focus is purely on the survival story. We can only wonder grimly how we too might act in similar straits.It's a film that shows a rare side of humanity, an unexplored piece of history and features some excellent music, cinematography, acting and an intelligent, believable script. I suspect it didn't make much money at the box office, which is a shame. This is a movie for grown ups. More please.

Grim. Relentless. Unsettling. Frightening even. This film leaves nobody sitting comfortably whilst they watch it. This is 'us' when the thin veneer of being 'civilized' is stripped away. When all that Life has left you is no future, a few rags and a brutalized nature then the consequences can reach unfathomable depths.I've read some of the negative reviews for this film and can understand it when viewers who watch 'sanitized' Technicolor visions of what are classed as the 'norm'…that is their benchmark and they don't like concepts that stray beyond that. But when one has watched unglamourous brutality and emotions in such good, raw films like Saving Private Ryan, Last of the Mohicans, Apocolypta, Fateless and the superb Kokoda, then one can appreciate what this true-life film was trying to achieve.There are no heroes in this film…and no villains, just survivalists. From the uniformed officers and men posted to what seemed a god-forsaken land, to the convicts they had control of, they all had one thing in common…the desire not to be there!I'll not watch this film again for a couple of months as I'd like my senses to be on an even keel next time, but already I'm looking forward to it.

Making a film set 200 years ago, about a group of escaped convicts in a remote part of the world, and who end up turning to cannibalism is not an easy task, quite obviously. That this film succeeds to the degree it does is a testament to the people behind it.There must have been a lot of time spent by the writers and director trying to work out the right approach for Alexander Pearce. Depicting him as a psychopathic cannibal from the outset (as per 'For the Term of His Natural Life') would have been wrong, he was surely more nuanced than that. This was a man transported to the colonies for the theft of six pairs of shoes, not any type of violent act.The need to eat your fellow escapees would have been a slow dawn of horror, and that is captured quite nicely here as these uneducated men stumble off into a world they knew nothing about. It's instructive to remember that most of us would be scared if dropped into this remote wilderness to find our own way out, even if equipped with provisions, warm clothing and a working knowledge of the geography and local flora/fauna. To imagine traversing what was completely unknown to any of them, and literally a world away from their birthplaces, dressed only in old prison rags and with food limited to some flour, is very frightening indeed.The cinematography is great, with the washed-out colours emphasising the alien nature of this wilderness. The acting is good as well, and the use of Gaelic for the occasional introspection of Pearce helps to prompt the viewer to think of just how someone can end up so far from home, and in such a horrific situation.Unfortunately there are a few stumbles as well, forgivable as this is the director's first feature. Some of the imagery is overdone - I'm thinking of the guard chewing at the beginning (yes, we know what's coming ...) - and the characters could probably be better distinguished through a little more talking than they actually do. As there is no back story or wider explanation of their predicament, the film does feel slightly repetitious in the middle section. There was also no attempt to show the men hunting for food, even though there would have been native wildlife all around them. To be fair, though, the depiction of cannibalism as the inevitable outcome of tackling this terrain with limited supplies is the main story, and given the limited budget of the film they were probably wise to focus on that aspect exclusively.All up, congratulations to the filmmakers for tackling such a tough subject and making it watchable. This is a very grim part of our history, but it needs to be known and discussed more than it is. The film is not easy to stomach (pun intended!) but you cannot watch it and not be affected, and is that not the aim of any movie? Pearce was not a wronged hero, he was a person who twice turned to cannibalism. But this film makes you think about your own response to landing in such an awful situation as these men. If the difference between civilisation and barbarism is three square meals, then these escaped convicts were in a place none of us would want to go.