Genre: Mystery & Suspense
Directed By: Tony Ayres
Written By: Blake Ayshford
On DVD: Oct 26, 2015
Runtime: 94 minutes
Studio: Monterey Media
| Sullivan Stapleton | |
|---|---|
Stapleton in 2013
| |
| Born | 14 June 1977 [1] Melbourne, Victoria, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1994–present |
Cut Snake is a tense, psychologically driven crime thriller in which one man discovers his biggest enemy to putting the past behind him may be only himself. Set in Melbourne in the mid-1970s, Cut Snake tells the story of Sparra Farrell (Alex Russell), an ex-convict who is trying to make a new life for himself in a new city. He has found honest work and even becomes engaged but the prospect of this new life is challenged when his foreboding and charismatic cell mate Pommie (Sullivan Stapleton) tracks him down upon his own release. Sparra finds himself enigmatically drawn back toward a world and a man that he was certain he had wanted to leave behind.
Cut Snake là một phim hình sự tâm lý hồi hộp và căng thẳng, mà trong đó một gã trai khám phá ra rằng kẻ thù lớn nhất của anh ta trong việc dứt bỏ quá khứ ở lại đằng sau có thể là chính anh ta mà thôi. Được đặt trong bối cảnh của thành phố Melbourne vào giữa thập niên 70 của thế kỷ trước, Cut Snake kể về câu chuyện của Sparra Farrell (do Alex Russell đóng), một cựu tù nhân đang cố gắng làm lại cuộc đời ở một thành phố mới. Anh ta đã tìm được một công việc lương thiện và thậm chí còn đính hôn nhưng viễn cảnh của một cuộc đời mới đã bị chao đảo khi mà gã bạn tù hấp dẫn và oan nghiệt trước đây tên là Pommie (do Sullivan Stapleton đóng) tìm ra được anh ta sau khi gã mãn hạn tù. Sparra cảm thấy mình bị lôi cuốn một cách bí ẩn vào cái thế giới và gã đàn ông mà anh ta chắc chắn là mình muốn bỏ lại ở đằng sau.
'Cut Snake': Melbourne Review
Sullivan Stapleton, Alex Russell and Jessica de Gouw play the three points of an incendiary romantic triangle in this noirish 1970s-set crime thriller
The Australian idiom "mad as a cut snake" describes either insanity or anger so extreme you don’t want to get near it, and while it might not mean much to audiences beyond Oz, it provides a terrific title for this dark, romantic crime thriller. A homoerotic twist enlivens the familiar dynamic of an ex-con trying to go straight, in more ways than one, when a former cellmate resurfaces to lure him back down a dangerous path. But director Tony Ayres often seems to be aping a vernacular that's foreign to him, making the moments of conventional melodrama more persuasive than the noir-flavored genre package.
On the plus side, Cut Snake is reasonably engrossing thanks to its eye-candy cast of rising stars, notably a ferocious but emotionally exposed performance from Sullivan Stapleton.
Written by Blake Ayshford, the film is set in the retro-sexy mid-'70s, unfolding primarily in suburban Melbourne and at a semi-isolated cottage in the peaceful bushland hills on the outskirts of town. Merv (Alex Russell) is the dream boyfriend who has dropped from out of nowhere into the life of twentysomething Paula (Jessica de Gouw), and while she knows little to nothing about his friends, family or past, marriage is on the horizon.
Enter James (Stapleton), nicknamed Pommie, fresh out of prison in Sydney and looking to pick up where he left off with Merv. Paula soon learns that her fiancé, whom Pommie calls Sparra, spent four years inside on manslaughter charges. She's slower to catch on to the full extent of their past relationship, but to the audience it's instantly clear. The sexual tension of their rough trade/pretty boy connection hangs in the air like storm clouds. The spell lingers especially for Pommie, whose hardened exterior and scary intensity can’t hide his raw hurt when Sparra shows resistance.
Pommie's volatile behavior invites trouble, backing Sparra into a tricky corner. His criminal history, his jeopardized future with Paula, his conflicted loyalty and love for his former cellmate and his own violent instincts force him to take drastic action.
Much of the setup is standard-issue stuff. The film acquires its most potent dramatic currency in the heated emotional exchanges between Pommie and Sparra, when the complexities of their feelings for one another are explored.
For an emerging actor doing muscle movies like 300: Rise of an Empire, Stapleton, who first turned heads as a different kind of thug in Animal Kingdom, doesn't shrink from displays of the torn heart that beats beneath brawny Pommie's '70s porn-star chest hair. His mad-eyed desperation becomes unexpectedly affecting, and Ayres pumps up the character's tragic vulnerability with some Christ-like poses.
Sparra has less definition but Russell locates the shadowy depths churning away as the character battles to regain Paula's trust and protect the life he's trying to create, while at the same time wrestling with his debt to Pommie, and perhaps his conflicted desires. De Gouw registers warmth and sensitivity, though Paula is frustratingly under-developed as the confused third point of the triangle, leaving her little to play beyond anxiety.
It's in the accelerating spiral of crime that the weaknesses of the script and direction become hard to ignore, particularly as cops close in, led by a detective who's all snarling, overstated menace. Plausibility is also called into question at several key junctures. In one particularly on-the-nose sequence, editor Andy Canny cross-cuts between Sparra and Paula having sex as a reaffirmation of their tested bond, while tortured, unpredictable Pommie dallies with a prostitute in a scene that lurches into heavy-handed violence.
It's admirable that Ayres is stretching himself in new directions after Walking on Water and The Home Song Stories. But he doesn't seem at ease on this turf, making for a drama that's both overwrought and underpowered. While the film has a crisp look splashed with rich colors, the propulsive energy, punchy rhythms and insinuating camera angles that make this kind of material sizzle are present only intermittently.
Cast: Sullivan Stapleton, Alex Russell, Jessica De Gouw, Megan Holloway, Kerry Walker, Robert Morgan, Paul Moder, Jim Russell, Catherine Lacey, Richard Anastasios, Luke Elliot, Brett Swain, Syd Brisbane, Christopher Bunworth, Rosie Traynor, Jack Daye
Production companies: Matchbox Pictures, in association with Retro Active Films
Director: Tony Ayres
Screenwriter: Blake Ayshford
Producers: Trevor Blainey, Michael McMahon
Director of photography: Simon Chapman
Production designer: Jo Ford
Costume designer: Cappi Ireland
Music: Cornel Wilczek
Editor: Andy Canny
Sales: EntertainmentOne
No rating, 94 minutes
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