John Noonan

A remake of the 70s French film, Deux Hommes Dans La Ville, this is the sorry tale of William Garnett (Forest Whitaker) on parole after spending 18 years in prison for killing a deputy. Now a convert to Islam and desperate to start a new life, William is constantly harangued by Bill, the town’s sheriff played by Harvey Keitel. Elsewhere, his former partner in crime, a human trafficker called Terence (Luis Guzman), wants to offer him a new life as long as it’s under his rule.

Directed by Rachid Bouchareb, Two Men in Town is a dusty, sun bleached saunter through redemption with William being taken under the wing by Brenda Blethyn as his parole officer, Emily. If it’s not already noticeable, this is a stellar cast and they are uniformly brilliant. Rather than the male leads sharing scenes that make the film, its perhaps Blethyn and Keitel locking horns that truly stand out. Keitel as a man who feels justice has yet to be done, and Blethyn as someone who has built her sense of the law on the ideals of everyone being allowed a second chance.

Unfortunately, there are faults. Particularly in a subplot that sees William quickly setting up a relationship with a Bank Teller that ends up feeling like nothing more than a quick fix to push William further in his story, rather than something natural.

However, its Whittaker’s nuanced performance that wins over as he tries to bury his youthful rage under his new religion. When a shift as a farm hand threatens to get in the way of his prayers, William tries to maintain dignity as he contemplates washing in a cow’s trough and kneeling in the manure. It’s truly a heartbreaking scene as, in a world that hates him, William tries to save himself and others by swallowing his rage.

Original review can be found here.

Back in 2012, The Cairnes Brothers brought us the grisly horror comedy 100 Bloody Acres, which did nothing for relations between farmers and tourists. And now they’re back for more scares albeit with a decidedly more severe tone in Scare Campaign.

Scare Campaign, within the film, is the biggest prank show in Australia and for the last five years its director (Ian Meadows) and his team have been scaring the bejesus out of unsuspecting stooges. Faced with cancellation for no longer being relevant, the production team, including jobbing actress Emma (Meegan Warner) decide on one last hurrah that will put the show back in the public consciousness. Setting themselves up in an abandoned hospital, things descend into a bloodbath when their latest victim turns out not to be who he seems.

Scare Campaign is a dark labyrinth of a movie that subverts the standard slasher formula. The Cairnes Brothers have evidently had a lot of fun twisting their story into knots and keeping their audience on its toes, with the dark corridors of the hospital acting as a perfect stage for their mayhem. Equally, there appears to be, if not so much a yearn for the horror movies of yore, at least an acknowledgement of their influence on modern horror and what makes them classics. ‘You need more than blood and gore if you want to be remembered’ the director cries out at one point.

Modern horror, after all, can swing heavily in favour of bloodshed over storytelling; a visceral thrill for the audience before they catch the bus home. The filmmaking brothers try to recapture that balance; even as heads fly and rooms are filled with screams, they want to keep you guessing. A suitable contrast to their previous work, Scare Campaign is a hefty slab of Aussie horror that fans will lap up.

Original review can be found here.