A brutal film, where there are no nice people or good guys, but which tells us a good story, in a convincing and credible way.
I expected more from this film. It's good, it has an interesting history, but it's lukewarm and uncomfortable, and there's not much to arouse our sympathy. I've seen a lot of films, I'm not sure if this was the first Australian film I saw, but it was certainly the first Australian film that I knew was Australian at the time I was watching it. Inspired by a real-life situation, the film creates a story in which the police seek to capture the members of a family well immersed in Melbourne's criminality. To achieve this, they seek the help of the most balanced person in that family: a young teenager.
The movie is good, the script is well written, and it has a lot of very good twists, but it's not a nice or pleasant movie. The characters are very harsh and unsympathetic, and violence and crime are a significant part of their lives, in a way that seems, almost, like a “family business”, proudly transmitted. Josh, the protagonist, is perhaps the one who will better move our sympathy, even though he is too introverted to create good chemistry with the audience. Even the police, with their brutality and cruelty, are far from being the heroes, with only a very thin distance that differentiates them from the bandits.
I liked the performance of Ben Mendelsohn, who gave life to the most brutal and dominant member of that family, a man that the police themselves seem to have sworn to death, and who doesn't think twice if he has to kill. Jacki Weaver is equally powerful and very good at playing the matriarch of the family, a woman who seems proud of her children's criminal record and will stop at nothing to protect them, no matter what they do. It was no accident that she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Also, Guy Pearce met the proposed challenge and gave an excellent performance in the role of a conventional police detective. The film also has good dramatic work by Joel Edgerton, James Frecheville and Sullivan Stapleton.
Technically, it's a discreet film, which bets more on a strong script and a good work by the cast than, properly speaking, on any kind of visual or artistic device. More than a visual work, this film seeks to tell a story – a rough, uncomfortable, sad and acidic story, but well written and intense. The cinematography is regular, the editing too, the sets and costumes are what you would expect to find here. The special, visual and sound effects used are discreet but functional.