Myall Creek Day of Justice

A average movie about a very important part of Australia history during the frontier wars. Badly the massacre was one of many that occurred such as the Convincing Ground Massacre.

But at least this one made it to court and help educate the wider white Australia public on the dreadful treatment of indigenous Australia's.

An example of the public interest is the massacre was mentioned in the novel Thomas Hurstbourne that was written in Queensland in 1864. The mention of the massacre was in therms of how horrible it was. So while the frontier wars continued into the early 20 century the Myal Creek massacre started to awak the wider public on what was occurring to indigenous Australias.

For an indie film, this just passes.

The good is the acting isn't too bad. We get good performances from the characters playing John Plunkett, Nebo, Henry Dangar and Charles Kilmeister. In fact the Kilmeister character becomes particularly interesting in the second half of the film with his moral dilemma. Sadly however the lead performance of Denny Day seems lost and confused half the time and the actress playing his wife is hardly given anything decent to work with. Roy Billing is also under-utilised.

The pacing and editing isn't too bad and tries to keep the film tempo up, considering not a lot of action is really taking place. It has enough reflection with some lovely cinematography in parts. The dance sequence and several shots involving fire are well done.

However the film script seems to avoid the true grit and terror of the situation. Focusing on being a court room drama for the most part is a huge blow and the film lags in statements that seem to just repeat. Some of the camera work is also sloppy, as if the cinematographer was fired or replaced at certain points. And the sound recording has clearly been neglected. (typical on low funded films) The Director seems to have kept in scenes where audio could clearly not be saved in editing which is frustrating at best.

Overall the film feels like it never truly hits the emotional strings that it could have and comes across as a missed opportunity.

A snapshot of Australian history that simply has not been brought to light before, Myall Creek: Day of Justice is a story that has been begging to be told.

With the spotlight on these events, the audience is taken on an educational journey to a time when one man went against the status quo of the time and stood up for what was right, rather than do "what was done".

Myall creek addresses such pertinent matters within Australian culture and history that is so important for us as viewers to know and understand.

Myall Creek: Day of Justice would be an excellent source and tool within the classroom of future young Australians as part of their studies of Australia and the history of our indigenous people.

This movie is both thought provoking and insightful, and has a few light hearted moments along the way.

I will be watching this movie again.