Review of “Cactus”
Cactus, or, more correctly, cacti, evoke images of desert landscapes, of life hanging on despite harsh conditions. Cactus, in this instance, refers to the great Australian colloquialism, meaning to be well and truly stuffed. Well and truly stuffed is Eli (David Lyons) who has been kidnapped by the mysterious John Kelly (Travis McMahon) from his city home in the middle of the night, and is driven through the Australian outback to an unknown destination and an uncertain future.
Cactus is the debut feature of writer/direct Jasmine Yuen-Carrucan, who has served a long apprenticeship as crew on an impressive list of Australian and international productions, including Shine, Dark City, The Last Samurai, and Kill Bill. In that time, she has obviously learned a great deal about the art of constructing a film. Each shot looks well considered, and she makes the most of the washed out colours of rural New South Wales, filmed as it was on location between Bathurst and Broken Hill, all dry creek beds and scorched countryside. She has been obviously influenced by her time working under Quentin Tarantino, evidenced by a (comparatively mild) torture scene set to The Wiggles’ ‘Hot Potato’, which will be thoroughly appreciated by any parents in the audience. Very much a blokey film, it works thanks to her sparse dialogue well acted by Lyons and McMahon, whom some (who watch these things) will recognise from Blue Heelers and Sea Patrol, respectively.
What did Eli do to deserve what we imagine must be a grim fate? Can be befriend his kidnapper and talk or buy his way out of trouble? What reason does his kidnapper have to be doing such underhanded work for a boss whose name he doesn’t even know? A strength of the script is that it never takes you where you expect it to… at the same time, it never quite makes up its mind what genre it is, nor follows up on any number of potentially interesting story threads. This is essentially a character piece between the two men, with support ably provided by Bryan Brown (who helped produce the film) as the long arm of the law, and Shane Jacobson (Kenny) as a truckie in the wrong place at the wrong time. With Underbelly rating so highly, one would think there is an audience out there for locally made films about the shady side of the Australian character. Cactus is a competent and enjoyable debut feature, which certainly deserves better than its single-screen and under-hyped release. There are certainly much worse films playing at multiple cinemas at the moment. I know. I’ve reviewed them.
CK
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