End Play

Tensions rise when an able-bodied young man visits his athletic yet wheelchair-bound older brother in this Australian thriller which is best entered into with as few expectations as possible. There is a dead female hitchhiker in the mix, and an intense scene in which one of the brothers cleverly disposes of the corpse in public, but the plot has several twists and turns along the way as the presence of the cadaver tests the strength of the bond between the brothers. The overhanging question is whether these two lonely, disenfranchised men can trust and love one another when they are both resentful of what the other has (the older one's wealth versus the younger one's health) and though set in a single location, the denouement is powerful stuff as everything slowly unravels. The script is not as airtight as it could have been; there are so many red herrings thrown in one certain direction that it almost seems outrageous when plot switches direction near the end. Then again, the key thing driving the film is the animosity and distrust lingering in the air between the two siblings - something that comes across very well with the way Peter Best's disquieting sound effects style music score hangs constantly in the background. The film has frequently been labeled as Hitchcockian, which is not quite right, however, this is a far more twisted and less straightforward thriller than one might expect from the 1970s Australian filmmaking scene; flawed for sure, but intriguing as anything, especially for a movie where over three quarters of the action takes place in a single indoors location.