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A long haul truckie who finds that the reality of his existence is far removed from his youthful dreams of owning and driving his own prime mover.

Prime Mover is certainly not the worst Australian film of the year but it is a highly forgettable one.

Romance, drama, comedy done with plenty of heart

When your dream becomes a reality and then turns into a nightmare.

A deep story about emptiness and longing.

In the outback of Dubbo, a young man named Thomas (Michael Dorman), working for a truck depot, is trying to get his hours up so that he can acquire his own semi-trailer. Thomas grieves when his father is killed in a machinery accident and he is watched over by his boss Phil (William McInnes). Yet Thomas&#39; heartache is put to rest when he meets Melissa (Emily Barclay) who is working at a gas station. They are almost immediately attracted to each other and start a relationship. Melissa&#39;s mother warns her about men and she soon finds herself pregnant with Thomas&#39; child. Melissa and Thomas decide to get married and they live in a caravan together. In order to buy his own semi-trailer though, Thomas borrows money from the local crims, as opposed to the bank. To pay off the loan he is forced to work thoroughly day and night along tiring road trips, regularly leaving his pregnant wife behind. Director David Caesar who previously made Dirty Deeds admits that he enjoys overlapping genres. Although it contains autobiographical elements from Caesar&#39;s own experiences as a young truckie, Prime Mover is essentially a genre film: a very uneven mix of young romance slight comedy and a crime story. The film has a striking resemblance to the Australian film Two Hands, which starred Heath Ledger as a young man who owed money to a gangster, while also balancing a romance with a young girl that he meets. It is because of the familiarity of this setup that Prime Mover just doesn&#39;t seem to have anything new to say. There are very few insights into the world of truckies that weren&#39;t already known. The film&#39;s formulaic narrative also suffers because of the sketchy characters as well. It is difficult to find Thomas a likable hero given his ill-treatment of his young pregnant wife, constantly telling her that he has a new plan. The script makes him come off as a boob rather than someone who is tenacious and always refusing to give up. Due to his underwritten character Thomas is also far less interesting and we are never really immersed into his suffering as he digs himself deeper and deeper into debt. Barclay fairs slightly better with her character and there are some emotional moments particularly with the relationship to her baby. Oddly, there are times when the relationship between Thomas and Melissa feels strangely compressed. The very first time that Thomas takes the girl for a drive at night and returns her home, she states to her mother &quot;you don&#39;t even know him.&quot; It is as though she is already defending him like she was in a serious relationship. There are some other talented actors who offer very slight performances too. In a small part, William McInnes is rather assertive as a father-like figure, but Ben Mendelsohn from Beautiful Kate is very forgettable and bland as the baddie and Gyton Grantley from Underbelly, complete with a handlebar moustache, is utterly wasted too. Although Cesar claims that his use of animation and fantastical elements throughout the film is meant to provide insight into an inner life of the characters, one has to question whether he was watching the same film. The animation is so scarcely used throughout Prime Mover that it acts as more of a gimmick rather than anything truly thought provoking. In one moment as Thomas and Melissa are making out, the camera zooms deep into her chest to reveal her heart as a high powered engine. Or as Thomas slips into a pill popping insomnia he envisions Phil climbing onto the side of his truck like a gremlin. At other times he sees Saint Christopher – the patron saint of travellers - giving him advice. It would be a stretch to call it deeply insightful. An almost identical concept was used more effectively throughout Sarah Watt&#39;s film Look Both Ways, which also starred William McInnes. Brief moments of entire animation were used to visualise a woman&#39;s fear of death in everyday life and to reflect her anxiety. This film is just not as sophisticated as that. Without interesting, sympathetic and fully developed characters it is extremely difficult to be moved or engaged by this sloppy mixture of crime and romance. Barclay is certainly an asset to the film though and if it had focused on her pain of being abandoned, rather than stooping into a tired formula, there might have been something emotionally driving and rewarding about the narrative. Prime Mover is certainly not the worst Australian film of the year but it is a highly forgettable one.

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Prime Mover

David Caeser mixes a nice blend here, set around the outback world of long haul trucking. Some really heartfelt moments are mixed with a sweet romance that holds the film together. Caesar doesn&#39;t shy away from the dark elements of the trucking industry either or the difficulties that the long haul lifestyle brings. Lots of drugs and shady characters and deals abound. Strong performances from the cast all round and witty dialog keep this moving along nicely. The only thing that made me sad at the end of this as I walked home was that this will be yet another well made and entertaining Aussie flick that the majority of Australians will ignore. I hope I&#39;m wrong but I doubt it. This film and other Aussie flicks this year all deserve a better fate. Well done David, look forward to your next film. My uncle, a truckie who died on the infamous Putty Rd, would have loved this. I remember riding with him to Tamworth when I was a kid and the stories he&#39;d tell.

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Director David Caesar can turn a pretty boring life topic into an interesting human observational drama. He did it with lawn bowls and the politics that go behind it in his first feature film Greenkeeping, and then again in Idiot Box about down-and-outs with a dream for a better life that involves robbing a bank for it to become a reality. With Prime Mover he moves his fascination further outback to the life of goofy Thomas who has a romantic notion of owning his own truck. The story set-up is sweet and leads you into a false sense, expecting another Aussie quirky movie. But in the hands of Mr. Caesar, it rolls into bleakness as Thomas&#39; dream turns into a nightmare. The cast did well in carrying this sometime clunky story. The pairing of actors Michael Dorman and Emily Barclay is perfect. Their love for gypsy music fits in perfectly with their chosen life style, specially with Dorman&#39;s character roaming around the countryside in his big truck. Ben Mendelsohn can do nasty so well, and William McInnes is one of the finest Australian actors going around at the moment. Prime Mover is another great Australian story that needed to be told, and that of the plight of the truck driver and the world they have to survive in. It&#39;d be interesting to see what Australian culture David Caesar tackles for his next feature.

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The rating this movie has is just absurd. Sure its not an action packed, big budget film, but its got a lot of heart. And its memorable. I think it is a story a lot of Australians can relate to. For me, the whole movie resonates as an desperate tale of *will* and *desire* with a foreboding sense of not knowing or feeling what one really wants. Emily Barclay and Michael Dorman conveyed this feeling of emptiness, while Ben Mendelson seemed a little plastic and under-utilised. On the whole, a very enjoyable Aussie movie and one that, for me, was quite haunting really. I hope it attracts more viewers!

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User reviews

Prime Mover

Prime Mover is certainly not the worst Australian film of the year but it is a highly forgettable one.

Romance, drama, comedy done with plenty of heart

When your dream becomes a reality and then turns into a nightmare.

A deep story about emptiness and longing.

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