Crawl

One of the dullest so-called thrillers I've seen in a long time, CRAWL has aspirations to be the next classic Aussie movie. The only good thing I can say about it is that director Paul China clearly knows his movies, but there's being inspired by and ripping off, and CRAWL falls into the latter category. In various press releases, China and his brother are described as the new Coen Brothers, but CRAWL is more like a Coen Brothers rip-off.

The opening scene is about the most memorable bit in it and even that rips off NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN like nobody's business. After this point we're in BLOOD SIMPLE territory, with a slow-burning plot involving a small cast who come together on one fateful night. Bloodshed ensues, but everything is dragged out to an endless degree so it becomes a chore to sit through. There's no artistry here, no suspense or gripping moments, just a film that eventually becomes silly because it's so po-faced.

It doesn't help that the script fails to breathe life into the various uninteresting characters, or that the cast members are singularly unmemorable. But by far the worst thing about this is the director himself, who has no idea of how to make a thriller work. I think even I, with zero training in film-making, could have done a better job.