written for the next issue of Tribune magazine
(film released in the UK on March the 9th)

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Gone
UK/Australia 2006
Starring : Shaun Evans, Scott Mechlowicz
Director : Ringan Ledwidge
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SNAPPILY-titled Gone is the movie debut of a director who's garnered acclaim and numerous awards for pop-videos and TV-advertisements - but don't let that put you off. Because while this Australia-set thriller may not bring Ringan Ledwidge any Baftas or Oscars to go with his quiver-full of Bronze Arrows (and other assorted ad-land gongs), it amply fulfils its primary purpose: providing the world's sensation-hungry multiplex audiences with well-crafted, atmospheric thrills.

It's based on a nicely economic script by Andrew Upton (Mr Cate Blanchett, as it happens) and James Watkins - the latter partly responsible for Marc Evans' claustrophobic, post-modern chiller My Little Eye (2002). And sweatily-tense confinement is also the order of the day here, despite the fact that the action mostly unspools in the wide-open expanses of the flyblown Outback. This is where the focus slowly tightens in on the constantly-shifting relationships between the three main characters, each of them twentysomething members of the footloose Lonely Planet generation: easygoing Scouser Alex (Evans), his posh-ish girlfriend Sophie (Amelia Warner), and Taylor (Mechlowicz), a charismatic Yank who inveigles himself into their car and their confidences. It isn't giving much away to say that Taylor isn't all he seems - indeed, he emerges as a junior version of Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley - a scheming Iago/Machiavelli in slacker/Kerouack-ish duds, his entire personality a sociopathic mesh of hidden agendas and ulterior motives...

A tricky role, then, but Mechlowicz amply confirms the promise of his 2004 breakthrough Mean Creek - that sensitive coming-of-age ensembler emphatically not to be confused with last year's Aussie slice-and-dicer Wolf Creek, the latter actually a closer reference-point for Ledwidge in terms of geographical setting and constant threat of violence (bloodshed is mostly off-screen here). Whatever the picture's merits - and it's a notably well-scored (David Bridie) and shot (Ben Seresin) enterprise - originality clearly isn't Gone's strong suit: Philip Noyce's Dead Calm and John Dahl's Joy Ride are merely two of the more obvious among its numerous cinematic antecedents. A serving of new Castlemaine in some dusty old bottles, then - but no less refreshing and welcome for that.

Neil Young
26th February, 2007
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GONE : [7/10] : UK (UK/Ausl) 2006 : Ringan LEDWIDGE : 88 mins (BBFC timing)
seen at Empire cinema, Bromsgrove (UK), 7th October 2006 - press show (CinemaDays event)