Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country

He is an outlaw named Kelly from Australia, but his circumstances are entirely different from those of old Ned. Based on the historical figure of Wilaberta Jack, Sam Kelly will kill a white man in self-defense. It is entirely justifiable, but this is Central Australia in 1920, so Kelly immediately takes flight. His fictionalized treatment becomes the stuff of a revisionist Australian Western in Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

When Fred Smith talks about God and his Christian faith, he really means it. That is why Sam and Lizzie Kelly really are fortunate to work for him. Regrettably, Smith’s new neighbor, Harry March, a WWI veteran suffering from PTSD, is not so enlightened. He cynically exploits Smith’s Christian charity, guilting him into loaning Sam and Lizzie to help whip his station into working order. Unbeknownst to Sam, March will act in a predatory manner towards Lizzie and then dismiss them from his property. The next time they encounter each other, March is shooting up the absent Smith’s farmhouse, accusing the Kellys of harboring a young runaway aboriginal station hand, loaned to him by the exploitative Mick Kennedy.

Old Sam has little choice but to blast a load of buckshot into March. Having no faith in the white Crown’s justice, Sam and Lizzie head out into the wild country. Inevitably, the hard-charging Sergeant Fletcher forms a posse with Kennedy and the reluctant Smith to give chase. However, many of the town’s poor white rabble will be surprised by the professionalism of circuit court Judge Taylor.

Sweet Country would be something like an Australian fusion of Chato’s Land and To Kill a Mockingbird, if it were not so conscious of its own social significance. Thornton lays it on heavy and never passes up an opportunity for a teaching moment. Yet, response to the film will likely be particularly divisive because of his idiosyncratic practice of flashing forward to briefly depict a character’s most significant moment, either when they are first introduced or at times of extreme stress. Although it is initially disorienting, it gives the film a really distinctive vibe over the long run.

It is also intriguing to watch how Thornton observes and subverts Western cinema conventions. He certainly addresses the film’s moral issues in stark black-and-white terms, but it should be noted Smith is an entirely sympathetic and empathetic character and the grizzled Sgt. Fletcher evolves in intriguingly ambiguous ways.

The fact that Smith and Fletcher are played by two of Oceania’s most recognizable thesps, Sam Neil and Bryan Brown, certainly will not hurt the film’s prospects. Neil is particularly engaging and ultimately quite poignant as the decent Smith. Indeed, it is quite refreshing to see a devout Christian treated with such respect in a film. Likewise, Matt Day’s portrayal of the judge is intriguingly messy. He has his moments, both good and bad. Yet, it is the nonprofessional Aboriginal actors Hamilton Morris and Gibson John, who really power the film, as the taciturn Kelly and the more ingratiating Archie (just Archie, he says), Kennedy’s foreman, who serves as the posse’s tracker.

Both Thornton’s style and his conspicuous manipulations can be distracting, but his boldness earns the viewer’s respect. It is uneven, but it successfully differentiates itself from the scores of international Western riffs. Recommended on balance for fans of socially conscious revisionist Westerns, Sweet Country opens this Friday (4/6) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Kill Me Three Times: Simon Pegg, Heavily Armed

It is easier to find a good hitman than a good dentist in this small Australian beachfront town. Unfortunately, Nathan Webb is not much of a DDS, but Charlie Wolfe is a highly reliable assassin. Both are out to kill Alice Taylor, but the defiant wife is surprisingly hard to kill, as the title indicates. Still, there will be plenty of other bodies piling up in Kriv Stenders’ Kill Me Three Times (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Granted, Alice Taylor has been unfaithful to her husband Jack, but it was as much a reaction against his abusive and hyper-controlling behavior as it was an attraction to likable lunk-head Dylan Smith. True to form, when Taylor says if he can’t have her, nobody can, he really means it. Initially, he only retained the hired gun to investigate her suspected affair, but when Wolfe provides the confirmation, Taylor contracts his full services.

As if that were not bad enough, Alice Taylor’s dentist also plans to bump her off. Nathan Webb has a mountain of past-due gambling debts. Most inconveniently, his bookie’s brother happens to be Bruce Jones, the local corrupt copper, who aims to collect. The plan is to stage a fiery car crash rendering Taylor unrecognizable, allowing Webb to collect on his scheming wife Lucy’s insurance policy when he switches their dental records. Obviously, these two plans will complicate each other.

Right, so let the conspiring and double-crossing commence. Arguably, there is nothing radically new in James McFarland’s screenplay, but he keeps the mayhem coming fast and furious. It also helps that Simon Pegg sets the tone right from the start, playing Wolfe with maniacal glee. He makes contract killing look like a ton of fun, which might hold less than wonderful implications for the social compact, but it works like a charm in a genre film. Likewise, Teresa Palmer makes a seriously impressive villain in the Lady Macbeth tradition as the equally sociopathic Lucy Webb. Yet, Bryan Brown tops them all for ruthlessness as the stone cold Jones.

Right, there are not a lot of “likable” characters in KM3T, but that way nobody should get too upset when misfortune and painful death starts to befall the motley crew. Logically, given their relatively straight roles, Alice Braga’s Taylor and Luke Hemsworth’s Smith (the other, other Hemsworth) are the least interesting characters. Frankly, Pegg is the star here and Palmer will get the potential breakout attention. However, fans will be amused to see Sullivan Stapleton (best known for hardnosed work in Strike Back and Animal Kingdom, as Webb, the acquiescent loser.

Australia’s sun-drenched beaches still look quite inviting, despite all the skulduggery Stenders unleashes. He lets the driving rock soundtrack and Pegg’s evil smirk set the vigorous pace and never looks in the rearview mirror. It is quite a lot of fun if you do not object to shamelessly violent humor (and what’s not to like about it?). Recommended for fans of blackly comic one-darned-thing-after-another thrillers, Kill Me Three Times opens this Friday (4/10) in New York, at the Landmark Sunshine.