Review: RED HILL - Single-Minded Bloody Carnage & Charm
rating: 3
You can always spot a western. Not in the obvious low-slung gun holster, wide brimmed cowboy hat, fist fight in a saloon kind of way, but more in the patented fundamentals of the hero alone, the stranger in a small town, out-gunned and out-manoeuvred, fighting injustice (or just fighting) with nothing but his wits, and a trusty sidearm. Or two. The western ideal also pays no attention to geography, or era, Clint Eastwood has basically been playing in westerns his entire career. Ok, maybe The Bridges of Madison County and Space Cowboys dont quite fit the playbill, but its only a small stampede from The Man With No Name to Harry Callahan or Walt Kowalski. In Red Hill, written and directed by Patrick Hughes, those ideals are transplanted wholesale to the modern day wilds of outback Australia, where new constable Shane Cooper (True Bloods Ryan Kwanten) has moved from the big city with his pregnant wife Alice (Claire van der Boom) after urban stresses caused them to lose their first child through a miscarriage. On Coopers first day he finds himself without his gun (lost somewhere in packing boxes), and dealing with the irascible police chief Old Bill (the ever reliable Steve Bisley). He even gets to ride a horse to his first call. And wear a hat. Red Hill is for all and intents and purposes a town in slow decline, and if the Coopers were looking for quiet then Red Hill seems like the perfect spot. Which is of course where things start to go slightly off kilter. After visiting a local farmstead where a horse appears to have been killed by a large, wild animal - a panther according to the horses owner Gleason (Cliff Ellen) you can practically reach out and touch the portentousness. There nothing like an old, haggard man for making it clear something bad is coming. That, and an approaching storm of course.
Soon enough, back in town Cooper comes across preparations by Old Bill and a small posse for the arrival of escaped convict Jimmy Conway (Tom E. Lewis), an aborigine locked up for life for the murder of his wife and unborn child. Patently, Conway has some unfinished business in Red Hill. Sent out to watch an approach road and an unlikely choice of route by Conway, Cooper finds himself the first man confronted by the impassive, and facially burned fugitive, Conways supposedly psychotic nature tested by Coopers un-trigger happy demeanour. The standoff only ending when constable and convict part company after Cooper takes a hard, rolling fall down the hillside. Its a scene that too quickly plants a firm flag theres method to Conways madness, and its directed at the long-standing inhabitants. Almost immediately eschewing the initial idea of simple insane butchery for another classic western ideal. Revenge. This motivational pointer is part of Red Hills wider problem of simplicity. Not that theres anything wrong with a bit of simple story-telling but here Hughes is hamstrung by his own two-dimensional characterisations. Old Bill may talk with an Aussie drawl but weve seen him a hundred times before. Jimmy Conway may garner our eventual sympathies but hes a just a cypher, and although Hughes implants on his plight some mirroring of general aborigine exploitation and degradation its all a little pat however Conways theft from an aboriginal display at the town hall is an effective smile-raiser. 
The one character that is thankfully fully rendered is Cooper himself, much of the success for that being in the hands of Kwanten. From the short scenes with his wife, to every moment of unfamiliarity with the outbacks sparse wilderness, and sparser population, and to the bloody, murderous conspiracy of Conways imprisonment he is wholly affecting. Perhaps problem should really be disappointment, because story concerns aside, Hughes has definite cinematic talent. Some of his imagery may be a little obvious, striving a little too hard for iconic status, (the horse ride beneath a lightning streaked sky is one) but theyre no less attractive for it and he shows an unmistakeable love for movie-making. Theres nothing disastrously wrong with Red Hill, in fact I rather liked it. Its an odd mix of single-minded bloody carnage and charm. You just wish for a degree of the ambiguity initially promised but all too quickly discarded. 
Red Hill is released in the U.K. today.