This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
A Day Late and a Dollar Short
Plot Overview
Corporal Ryan Logan (Sam Worthington) a sniper in Australia's special forces is wounded while serving heroically in Iraq. Now he's an instructor back home and helping to raise their eight-year-old Billy (Gilbert Bradman) with his ex-military wife Justine (Phoebe Tonkin)—the only one who understands him. One day while driving down a quiet road she turns around in her seat to smile on her securely buckled kid in the back and is T-boned by a drunk driver running a red light. In hospital there's only enough blood on hand to save one of them. Ryan's erstwhile commander Johnny (Matthew Nable) "takes care of" the drunk, putting Ryan in his debt.
Some seven or eight years
hence after drifting from job to job, Ryan is a sales rep for a liquor
distributor. Such a gig is a slam dunk for steady income as attested
to by Welsh authoress Menna Gallie: “Aye, you can sell anything
if you call it export, mun, ever since the war, see. People think
something's got to be good if it's good enough for foreigners,
for export, see—” (6). Unfortunately, there was too much
war in Ryan's presentation and his would-be customers complained and
got him terminated. He now needs an immediate source of money to keep
Billy (Edward Friday Carmody) afloat in a private school where it's
hoped he'll stay out of trouble. Billy knows the score, like for one
character in a Ronald Frame novel:
I received her most serious dressing-down yet. She left me in no doubt that a private school had been well beyond her own and my father's expectations for themselves. As a scholarship boy, I should be particularly conscious of my situation. It showed bad breeding, she said, to be so churlish about using the opportunities which life presents.‘They'll boot you out, Neil, do you realize that? Then what will become of you?’
But I knew.
‘You'll turn into some common little savage, that's what.’
Like [so and so].
My mother was in tears. However, that was all the hard talking I needed. Now that I understood how far I might fall, I had to start right now, working to save the rest of my life. (186)
Ideology
Johnny needs a wingman to help him heist some dirty drug money and Ryan accedes against his better judgment.
(Prov. 1:10-19) “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.”
The problem with hitting drug dealers
is the tentacle is attached to a larger body that has other tentacles.
Taking on a drug cartel is one slippery slope you don't want to find
yourself on. It's likely to come back on one or both of them.
Ryan had better try to extricate himself while he can.
Production Values
“” (2023) was written and directed by Matt Nable. It stars Sam Worthington, Matt Nable and Phoebe Tonkin. Worthington is a worthy actor fun to watch. The starring actors were gleaned from TV movies and it shows in their drab performances. Yet their conversations come across quite natural. The two youngsters playing the protagonist's son did a great job.
MPAA rated it R for violence, language throughout, teen drinking and drug use. The choppy pace befits serious drama more than an action/thriller. The music failed to perk it up. Back and forth flashbacks can be tracked by Ryan's earlier military haircut vs his later long hair. It was filmed on location in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Runtime is 1¾ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
Even Hollywood is situated in a country where its settlers came seeking religious freedom, and religion tends to bleed through even in pagan offerings. Australia was a prison colony. The only pseudo religion I saw was the dead wife coming back (for a time) as an angel.
This one was tailored for the slow pace taste of the Aussies and might not appeal to Americans used to plots that move right along. If this is your cup of tea, there's nothing wrong with it. I like all kinds of movies and didn't mind. It was different.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Better than watching TV. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quotation from the Authorized King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Frame, Ronald. The Lantern Bearers. © 1999 by Ronald Frame. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 1999. Print.
Gallie, Menna. The Small Mine. Copyright © 1962 by Menna Gallie. First edition. New York & Evanston: Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated, 1962. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org