Don’t Tell: A Well-Made Courtroom Drama Lacking Cohesion
Don’t Tell is an excellent film with major flaws, undone by its own lack of focus.
Don’t Tell is an excellent film with major flaws, undone by its own lack of focus.
The easiest barb to direct at Brendan Cowell’s Ruben Guthrie is that it’s another Aussie film about the problems of rich white blokes (see also: Little Death, The/Any Questions for Ben?). This isn’t technically incorrect; the titular protagonist is, indeed, a wealthy white dude (Patrick Brammall). But the screenplay’s real concerns aren’t so much the…
Mystery Road does, as the title suggests, concern a mystery of sorts. An indigenous teenage girl is found murdered on the outskirts of an outback Aussie town, and Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen, fantastic) investigates. His inquiries turn over dusty rocks, disturbing the dark creatures from their hiding places. In spirit of noirs like Chinatown…