A morality play about brutal rape and murder set in the frontier of Queensland, Australia, is the subject of this gorgeously shot, deliberately paced western, the debut screenplay by rocker Nick Cave.
A couple hundred years ago mostly British newcomers settled
a new continent. There were some people there, but these they displaced,
killed, or made servants of. In the dusty, rough-and-tumble interior, where a
small-town sheriff might be judge and jury, they made
a new civilization with little regard for outside authority. So it was on the Australian
frontier. Nick Cave, the UK-based, Australian-born rocker whose dark albums
include one called Murder Ballads, has published a novel, but this
brooding western represents his first screenplay. Centering around a brutal
rape and murder, it’s a kind of mystery whose relevations are mostly about
motivation, not what happened, which turns out to be roughly straightforward.
There are several well-known faces. Guy Pearce (Memento) is the
anti-hero who, as the title alludes to, is offered the chance to save one
brother by killing another. Ray Winstone is terrific as the lawman who offers
him that chance, and Emily Watson is the loving wife whom he tries to protect
from the ugliness of his work. The film is gorgeously shot, and, even though it
may falsely set the viewer up for a more action-oriented movie, the shootout
that begins the movie crackles with a frightening realism.
posted 8/16/13
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