Librarian Idol
August 12, 2007
Review - Rogue dir. Greg McLean
By Andrew
Last night, I had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of Greg McLean's (Wolf Creek) latest offering - Rogue. The outdoor location of the deckchair cinema was a perfect setting for this screening, and the sold-out crowd was an indication of how excited everybody was about this film - it was a new export for the Northern Territory.
And with the film's distribution to hundreds of locations in the US in its forthcoming release, this film is, first and foremost, an Australian export. This became abundantly clear as the film commenced, and I couldn't help but giggle a bit at all the Australian film cliche's that were jam-packed into the first five minutes.
That said, I was taken straightaway by the spectacular cinematography - this film is to the Northern Territory / Australian Tourism Industry as Lord of the Rings was to New Zealand's. As the film progresses, it's clear that a lot of money has been poured into this film to create a well-polished, quality feature film.
Which leads me to the biggest problem that I had with this film - It's a movie about a bunch of guys that get trapped and hunted by a monster killer crocodile. And for what is quite a ridiculous plot, the film works really hard to try to take itself seriously. And for the most part, it works, but only just.
This film has an all-star Australian cast, with a practically-unknown Hollywood-hero - presumably to give the film more marketable appeal in the US. I had a problem with the politics of this and the possible implication that, ultimately, when we're trapped in the middle of nowhere with a killer crocodile stalking us, we need an american hero to rescue us. But hey - it's a film about a crocodile - let's not overanalyse. But back to the cast - kudos to John Jarratt, who plays an insecure middle-aged tourist, mourning the loss of his wife, Stephen Curry, who never fails to provide comic relief as a photography-obsessed dweeb, and mr-unknown-hollywood-guy whose name I forget, for being able to exercise all of his Hollywood-acting-cliche skills which, as annoying as they are, were necessary for keeping the pace going. However, the special treat for me was the cameo by Barry Otto at the beginning.
Many of the characters of the film are given some background, and relationships are alluded to, through random signs like matching tattoos (for example), but they are never really fleshed out, and you never really get to know much about the people in this film, and therefore there is all-the-less pathos when one of them is about to get crunched up. This was a little disappointing, but at the end of the day, this is a film about a killer crocodile, and the pace was already slow enough at times without getting bogged further by character development.
Oh yes, and the crocodile. The crocodile was awesome. As McLean explained in the intro to the film, it's very rare that you get a film with a convincing crocodile, and this one's pretty damn convincing. And vicious - there are plenty of "look away now" moments for people with a weak stomache.
Ultimately, this is a very very shiny film, which will undoubtedly be an international success, and boost Australia's tourism industry. Visually, it's very stunning, and, other than one or two slight lags, McLean keeps the tension high in a life-or-death race against time and nature. Unfortunately, however, this film just tries to take itself too seriously, for such a ridiculous plot, and, as a result, suffers for it. Still - a fun night out.
© 2007 blogspot.com
 Back To Rogue Expositions
|
