peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2022 01 02 MysteryRoad

Mystery Road (2013)

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The sleepy sequel followed a sleepy original. This has a high-beam cast, again with Aaron Pedersen in the lead. He has quite a few more lines in this one. Hugo Weaving at his most affable, avuncular, threatening. They have a scene in a country Chinese restaurant that was so promising and so wasted. David Field. And here's Bruce Spence, playing a good-bloke coroner. Mrs Rove McManus Tasma Walton, so clunky in her scenes that she even brought Pedersen up short in an exchange near a pokie. I don't mind and even somewhat enjoy that this stuff is soporific, like a spaghetti western, but I can't say there's much novelty here. Then again I wasn't paying enough attention to understand who came to the shootout and why. The cinematography was again gorgeous.

Sandra Hall tries to be generous. Matthew Eeles: yep, there's a strange asymmetry at work on the plains of outback Queensland, where Pedersen can see everyone and no one can see him. Simon Foster.