the_headspace

This is an important and necessary film, since I don't think many people truly understand the horror experienced by the indigenous aboriginals at the hands of the English. Personally, I knew it in the abstract, but this film brings it home in an emotional and visceral way.

A lot of reviews mention the violence, which I didn't find too disturbing. Nothing too graphic or bloody, compared to the average John Wick film. But the violence, particularly against women and the indigenous people, is shocking in a deeper way, because though not based on a true story, it is an unflinching look at a real, genocidal period in history.

The film itself has a low budget feel to it. The acting is generally good, though I wouldn't say outstanding. About a third of the way through, some of the characters' actions seemed rather absurd, more plot than character driven. There were also a number of "in one bound they were free" type of scenes, and some rather patchy editing.

The ending could have pared back a couple of shots, but they dragged it out a bit too long. I believe the final shot should have belonged to Billy.

All in all, an important and necessary, but not particularly great film.

I figured I'd watch this as a mindless popcorn movie, and for a while I managed to watch fairly mindlessly as planned.

But the feeling that it's actually a vacuous, cliche-ridden 2 hours of garbage had been building, and now I'm wondering whether I should just stop watching. It's getting kind of painful.

The macguffin is rather pointless, the setup of a ragtag collection of kick-ass outsiders has been done so many times before, and the action sequences are getting tedious.

I should really try to do a proper review of this, but I just can't be bothered.

Watch if you like the occasional junk-food, empty calorie movie, otherwise try to flex your movie muscles on something else.