Dir. Ringan
Ledwidge, 2007, Australia/UK, 88 mins
Cast: Shaun Evans, Scott Mechlowicz, Amelia Warner
Review by Richard Mellor
Hours before the Gone screening it was printed
that a staggering 2,433 tourists had died in Australia during
the past seven years. Though many of these were due to reasons
ranging from crocodiles to climate, it can't help the Aussies
to have fatally unhinged Americans guiding us gullible Britons
around their remote roads.
After the semi-recent Wolf Creek warned about crazies lurking
in lesser-populated areas of western Australia, Gone suggests
that the 'Down Under' tourist traps aren't so safe either.
En route to meet his girlfriend, straggly-haired, shy 20-something
Alex misses a flight and is forced to stop over in Sydney.
There he meets the swaggering Taylor who, on the pretense
of being a thoroughly good bloke, takes him out and gets
him drunk.
Alex wakes up next to a girl and figures he has cheated
on girlfriend Soph. Telling him to forget about it, Taylor
ferries Alex off to a reunion with his partner. The three
embark on a road trip, the cue for an hour of increasingly
menacing grins from Taylor. The cunning American is threatening
towards Alex yet sanguine and near flirtatious with his Soph.
The plot sinks into a familiar funk as Alex strives and
fails to convince Soph that Taylor could possibly be completely
bonkers. Our eyes are Alex's, a maddening situation given
his limp naivety. So easily distrusting of her boyfriend's
concerns, Soph is just as irksome. Looking a good bet to
make it 2,435 dead tourists, Taylor is unintentionally the
most likeable of the three.
The brilliantly-named Ringan Ledwidge
has carved a debut that's just about gripping, if terminally
predictable. His movie is good looking – think bleached, desolate desert
and scantily-clad young adults – and also notably sinister.
There's a deliberate nod to Dead Calm, another film that
traced the simmering tensions of a impromptu travelling threesome.
But where Dead Calm constructed an innocent couple's peril
with subtlely and craft, Gone is simply preposterous. With
Alex and Soph keen to leave him behind, Taylor somehow manages
to conjure up a car/moose collision, leaving Alex zombied
on painkillers and Soph even more vulnerable to persuasion.
Not many criminals can lead moose to martyrdom.
Taylor's vitriol is a misguided moral
crusade – he
is set on punishing Alex's perceived infidelity. In so doing,
he stands alongside an army of cinematic baddies who've based
their villainy on vengeful ethics. And it always seems an
all-too-simplistic reason for big screen evil; haphazard
chemistry or traumatic childhoods make much more rewarding
motives.
But Gone's biggest problem is that all the time and effort
put into this nasty little road movie could have been better
spent. Ultimately, Gone leaves you with a reminder not to
accept lifts from glinting-eyed itinerants, some lovely desert-scapes
and a portrait of a weak relationship falling apart
In short, this is 90 simmering, malevolent minutes leading
to a violent explosive denouement, with scarcely any relevance
to everyday life. It teaches you little and is plain nasty
in addition. No doubt airfares in such anglo-Australian efforts
hurt the climate, so any collaboration should really be worthwhile
and productive. Gone seems anything but.
|
