{"id":4750,"date":"2014-08-01T02:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-08-01T01:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=4750"},"modified":"2017-03-20T03:41:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-20T02:41:01","slug":"mystery-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2014\/08\/01\/mystery-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery Road"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mystery<\/a>
Mystery Road<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nRelease date:<\/B> 29 August 2014

\nDistributor:<\/B> Axiom Films

\nDirector:<\/B> Ivan Sen

\nWriter:<\/B> Ivan Sen

\nCast:<\/B> Aaron Pedersen, Hugo Weaving, Jack Thompson, Ryan Kwanten, Tasma Walton

\nAustralia 2013

\n122 mins\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ivan Sen\u2019s fine, modern-dress Australian western impresses as much for what it doesn\u2019t do as much as what it does. It\u2019s unhurried, unprettified, and has a sparse soundtrack with minimal music; not everything is explained, and much is left unsaid. In other words it\u2019s a genre film made for adults \u2013 remember them?<\/p>\n

Aaron Pederson plays a man alone, an aboriginal copper, treated as the enemy by his own people, and hardly \u2018one of the boys\u2019 in the small police department he has recently returned to in outback Queensland. Tasked with a job nobody else wants \u2013 investigating the murder of a teenage aboriginal girl \u2013 he begins to uncover some murky business involving drugs and prostitution, in which his own force, and, more queasily, his own abandoned daughter, may be involved. Clearly headed into troubled waters, and with nobody to back him up, he begins to look more and more vulnerable under those wide-open skies…<\/p>\n

Mystery Road<\/i> is released in the UK on DVD, Blu-ray and VOD on 27 October 2014 by Axiom Films<\/a>.<\/div>\n

The set-up is entirely conventional for any number of thrillers, but there are no Hollywood faces here, no extraneous action sequences, no master criminals either. The details of life in this harsh environment are well observed, and the atmosphere of menace is well sustained right up to the brilliantly delivered final confrontation. All the performances are pitched just right, with Hugo Weaving especially good value as the wayward and worrying leader of the drug squad (in terrifying double denim!). It looks great, too, especially the night sequences, where the land turns black, and the horizon is a riot of oranges and reds, with human figures picked out in sick green neon. Photography by Mr. Sen as well. Clever boy. Gold stars.<\/p>\n

This review was first published as part of our 2013 LFF<\/a> coverage.<\/div>\n

Mark Stafford<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ivan Sen\u2019s fine, modern-dress Australian western impresses as much for what it doesn\u2019t do as much as what it does.
\nReview by Mark Stafford<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[779,978,378],"class_list":["post-4750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-check-it-out","category-cinema-releases","tag-australian-film","tag-ivan-sen","tag-westerns"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/purUP-1eC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4840,"url":"https:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2014\/09\/09\/the-canal\/","url_meta":{"origin":4750,"position":0},"title":"The Canal","author":"Pam Jahn","date":"September 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Ivan Kavanagh\u2019s shadowy horror tale is haunted by the ghosts of cinema. 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