for this week’s Tribune : Patrick Hughes’ RED HILL [7/10]

Published on: May 12th, 2011

Red Hill
Director: Patrick Hughes

It’s tempting to describe Red Hill as an Australian cross between the Coen brothers’ No Country For Old Men and Shane Meadows’ Dead Man’s Shoes, except neither of those neo-western precedents have the oddball – but decidedly straight-faced – humour that drives this auspicious and deceptively clever debut by writer/director/editor Patrick Hughes (segue-ing neatly into films after a successful spell making commercials.)

Set in the eponymous (fictional) outback town, this is an enjoyably old-fashioned affair – albeit one rated 15 by the BBFC for its “strong bloody violence and language” – which delights in upending viewer expectations. Indeed, the less one knows about the picture beforehand the better, suffice to say that our fresh-faced hero is twentysomething cop Shane Cooper (appealing Ryan Kwanten, from TV’s vampire hit True Blood), who relocates from a big-city beat after a traumatic incident that has left him decidedly gun-shy. Accompanying him is his heavily pregnant wife Alice (Claire van der Boom), who has already miscarried one baby and whose high blood-pressure means she has to be kept away from stressful situations.

This proves somewhat tricky when, on his first day in his new employment – working under no-nonsense, old-school sheriff Old Bill (Steve Bisley) – Shane learns that a much-feared convicted murderer, aborigine Jimmy Conway (Tom E. Lewis) has busted out of jail and is heading to Red Hill to wreak vengeance on the men who put him away. There are various twists along the way – some more “guessable” than others – in a picture which delights in dusting off well-worn directorial and scriptwriting clichés and giving them a post-modern spin that’s never too overwrought, always falling just the right side of smart-aleck parody.

Dmitri Golovko’s thunderously mucho-serioso score is a crucial element, likewise Tim Hudson’s widescreen cinematography, showing a particular flair with the key nocturnal sequences that punctuate the narrative (and which are often illuminated by torchlight, gunfire or lightning-bolts). Indeed, it’ll be a shame if the movie only finds its proper audience as a cult favourite via DVD and download, as this is a full-blooded romp of a picture which should be seen in as big a cinema-auditorium as possible, with a live audience reacting to its pungent blend of comedy, horror and horse-opera – an honourable addition to the so-called “vegemite western” sub-genre, an unusual taste that proves surprisingly easy to acquire.

Neil Young
3rd May, 2011
(written for the 12th May edition of Tribune magazine)