FILMS .... with Tim Milfull
The Reef (M)
Director: Andrew Traucki
Stars: Damian Walshe-Howling, Gyton Grantley, Adrienne Pickering, Zoe Naylor, Kieran Darcy-Smith
Rating: 4/5
88-minutes, screening from 17 March.
This week’s film reviews have a very Australian flavour, as quite a few home-grown films are releasing over the next few months. Andrew Traucki’s second feature film The Reef, is another genre film that combines many of the elements that made up his first feature Black Water a story about a crocodile that traumatises a tour group in the Northern Territory.
This time, Andrew’s victims are in open water off the coast of Queensland, and The Reef is based on a true story that happened in the 80s, and stayed with the writer-director long after reading about the tragedy.
Damian Walshe-Howling – who has made something of a name for himself on both sides of the law in Underbelly and Blue Heelers – plays sailing boat caretaker Luke who has invited a couple of mates to tag along with him while he sails from Australia to Fiji.
Along for the ride are Matt (Gyton Grantley) and his girlfriend, Suzie (Adrienne Pickering), their mate, Kate (Zoe Naylor), and deckhand, Warren (Kieran Darcy-Smith). When the boat bottoms out and begins taking on water before capsizing, the group are faced with the choice of staying with Warren on the sinking hull, or setting out with Luke for a nearby island.
Neither choice is too attractive with both involving the distinct possibility of being visited by sharks; soon the group splits. I’ll say no more about the plot, other than Traucki and his team do an excellent job ratcheting up the tension in this exhausting film.
Traucki has set up a pretty impressive website for their film. Check out www.reefmovie.com for all sorts of stuff about the film, some behind-the-scenes content, and a competition that gives you a chance to swim with a Great White.
Super hero out of left field
Griff the Invisible (M)
Writer/director: Leon Ford
Stars: Ryan Kwanten, Patrick Brammell, Maeve Dermody
Rating: 4/5 92-minutes, screening from 17 March
True Blood hunk Ryan Kwanten obviously hasn’t been blinded by his success in the States, as he also starred in two very different Australian productions in 2010. The first, Patrick Hughes’s Red Hill, premiered late last year and was hailed as a modern Western, pitching Kwanten’s greenhorn constable against some very unattractive rural Victorian bigotry.
Kwanten’s second film has the almost unrecognisable actor stepping out as a classic superhero who protects the streets at night and maintains a mild-mannered identity by day. Kwanten’s Griff works as a barely noticeable shipping clerk who has a history of being bullied in the workplace, and is steadily supported by his older brother, Tim (Patrick Brammell).
At home, Griff has an impressive set-up supporting his career as a superhero, including sophisticated surveillance systems, a hi-tech suit, and a direct line to the city’s police commissioner.
When Tim introduces Griff to his new girlfriend, Melody (Maeve Dermody), Griff is shocked and dismayed to realise that he may have found a kindred spirit; the trouble is balancing a new relationship with his demanding crime-fighting duties.
There is much more going on in Griff the Invisible than most will initially realise, and this is the great pleasure of writer-director, Leon Ford’s debut feature.
Ford takes his time building up his characters, and is careful not to reveal too much too fast. The result is a colourful and surprisingly sweet superhero film with a difference.
THE BINGE
Viva la difference
The Loved Ones (MA15+) available through Madman from 16 March
Summer Coda (M) now available through Madman Alliance
Française French Film Festival screening from 16 March to 3 April
There are two very different DVDs on offer from Madman this fortnight, with something extremely blunt and shocking, and something elegant and understated.
In Sean Byrnes’s debut feature The Loved Ones, torture porn takes on an Ocker twist, with the seriously twisted Lola (Robin McLeavey) obsessing on Brent (Xavier Samuel), who recently turned down her request to take her to the school formal – a decision that he will come to regret.
In Summer Coda, another debut feature – this time from Richard Gray – music student Heidi (Rachael Taylor) travels from the United States to Australia to attend the funeral of her estranged father, and discovers more than she can necessarily handle in his family, and a group of friendly fruit pickers that might just hold the answer to her sense of not belonging to anywhere in particular.
I managed to catch a half dozen or so films out of the Alliance Française French Film Festival’s forty-plus strong program that will visit Brisbane in mid-March. The When Cinema Seizes History section brings to life historical figures like the murderous Joseph Stalin in An Ordinary Execution, and the equally dangerous assassin Carlos in the film of the same name; there’s also Outside the Law, a riveting account of Algerian revolutionary battles in 1960s France, and the astonishing Of Gods and Men, which sadly missed out on an Oscar nomination.
Police & Thieves is a section focusing on crime and thrillers, with Turk’s Head telling a tight story of the problems of multicultural France, while Joseph and the Girl sees an ex-con re-entering society to organise a robbery that has been decades in the planning.
There’s much more on offer, including films featuring big names like Kristin Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier (Love Crime), and veteran directors like Bertrand Tavernier (The Princess of Montpensier).
• For more details about the Alliance Française French Film Festival and its program and events, visit http://www.frenchfilmfestival.org
