Last Ride

I found this film to be much better than expected, especially compared to the relatively low score on IMDb. I'd give it a solid 8.5. Fine acting by both the father and the little boy (and all the incidental characters). It reminded me a bit of the Russian film "The Return (Vozvrashchenie)." Both were so-called last rides between father and son(s). If you like this film, there's a good chance you'll like "The Return." One of the things I really liked about this movie was that it didn't need to have every moment filled with dialog like a lot of movies. There are some great scenes with little or no dialog where the interaction between the characters and their environment created enough mood on their own. More dialog would have just been a distraction at times. My only complaint about the film was that I wish it was a bit longer. But then that's a sign of a good film, you don't want it to end.

It takes a lot of guts to push for truth to character rather than going for the easy way out, softening the edges. In this film Hugo Weaving's character has been so severely scarred by life that he has become a total sociopath, with no capacity for empathy, let alone love. It would have been easier for Weaving to have softened him a bit, shown signs that really deep down he did love his son. But that would not have been this guy, who is as hard as nails and totally self-concerned. Even when takes his son camping, it is all about himself, recapturing the few happy times in his youth. When his son makes that picture shake, his reaction is vicious. All this makes it a hard film to watch, in the same league as some other Australian films like "The Boys".

Matching Weaving step for step, Tom Russell's portrayal of the wary boy wishing his father would show him some affection but fearing the worst, is brilliant. Never overdone or mawkish, showing extraordinary subtlety and maturity for one so young.

Finally, the ending is suitably enigmatic, leaving us with questions about what really happened, and what might now.

A brilliant film, but if you like feel-good with a happy ending, don't go to this one.

Diane and I saw this engrossing examination of the other side of human existence; a side that as portrayed in Last Ride would probably be unfamiliar, unappealing and unflattering to all concerned and yet strangely curious as if they are the Other rather than us under different circumstances. Obviously a film that features only two central characters will rise or fall based upon the success of those two characters as actors; whether or not they can draw the audience into their lives and whether they can create enough drama in their interaction to sustain believability over the course of the script. In my opinion they succeeded on both accounts extremely well. I thought Weaving's portrayal of a guy caught between the mistakes of his past and the hopelessness of his present was unusual and unusually poignant. I can hear people laughing and saying that the formula has been rehashed so many times that it is trite. My answer to that comment is that I have not seen it done so well. Weaving portrayed a guy on a knife edge, caught between a past that will not let him forget and a future that has no place for him.

How many of "hims" are out there? Do we as a society have a responsibility? What went wrong? Was the script over dramatised? Did Weaving play his character too wildly, too dramatically? I do not think so. I also thought Tom Russell was brilliant. I thought that his character morphed between the extremes demanded of him in the script very well. Diane knows children his age far better than I and her comment was kids do not spring back and forth between absolutes as Russell's character did but to me I found his morphing as real as his dad's. Under those extreme circumstances I could understand the motivations of both central characters. A difficult film but one that should be seen to see what film can do.

I'm loving Australian cinema at the moment. It's showing a side of Australia we never see after years of Crocodile Dundee and Steve Irwin. I loved Kenny and loved Beautiful Kate even more. While I don't think it's quite in the same league as the latter, it's still yet another movie which shows the beauty of Australia's great outdoors.

But despite its visual warmth, the backbone of the movie is its dark story. It reveals itself gradually through-out the plot. You will hate Kev (the father), but there will come a point where you will actually come to accept him. Weaving is, as to be expected, solid and his co-star Tom Russell (Chook, the son) looks set to have a great future in the business.

It's a very good movie that you should check out if you get the chance. 8/10

According to the Screen Australia web site, some 45 Australian features were made in 2008, up from 25 in 2007. This movie is probably one of the better ones along with Sampson, My Year Without Sex, Disgrace, Mary and Max and The Black Balloon. It is an adaptation of a well-received first novel by Denise Young by a first-time feature director Glendyn Ivin, the sort of creative combination so beloved of our film funding bodies – "Here's $3 million, go away and play dears". In this case the result isn't so bad and the film does add something to the novel's story of a petty criminal's last sojourn with his 10 year old son across the Australian countryside, with the forces of law and order in hot pursuit. The novel set the action in outback New South Wales but the film makers removed the setting to the more spectacular wildernesses of northern South Australia for both artistic and financial reasons. The reason for Kev and his son Chook's flight, apparent at the start of the novel, is revealed only by degrees, which does add to the drama.

As others have noted, the father Kev, played with all lugubrious stops out by the lugubrious Hugo Weaving, is not a very likable character. Not only does he have serious anger management issues, he is pretty selfish and stupid – the sort of criminal one finds in prison rather than out of it. Having had a pretty sad upbringing himself he does try to do better as a father, but it is not easy for him, and it is not surprising his son becomes disillusioned. His son, despite all the fatherly incompetence, seems surprisingly normal – perhaps this is the result of an uncannily naturalistic piece of acting by Tom Russell, a child actor who is so good he doesn't seem to be acting. What does come across is that even bad fathers can teach good lessons, and that in the end we have to become our own person.

Greig Fraser's cinema photography featuring the Flinders ranges, Wilpena Pound and Lake Gairdner gives a majestic backdrop to what is a fairly small story – I thought it a bit like "And When Did You last See Your Father" would have been if it had been set in the Swiss Alps. Unlike that film, this one has a less angry tone. Poor old Kev can't really help being so inadequate, and he at least makes an effort for his son.

This was an interesting and watchable piece, but I can't see it doing well. Like a lot of similar realistic movies it deals with people at the margins of society, and frankly, most people aren't interested (escapist is a different story). I just wish the government film bodies would stop throwing money at first-timers to make stuff so alien to most people's experiences and of so limited relevance to whatever main steam Australian culture is. One the other hand, The Black Balloon and My Year Without Sex did deal with topics relevant to us all. Bring back David Williamson, I say.