Myall Creek Day of Justice

For an indie film, this just passes.

The good is the acting isn't too bad. We get good performances from the characters playing John Plunkett, Nebo, Henry Dangar and Charles Kilmeister. In fact the Kilmeister character becomes particularly interesting in the second half of the film with his moral dilemma. Sadly however the lead performance of Denny Day seems lost and confused half the time and the actress playing his wife is hardly given anything decent to work with. Roy Billing is also under-utilised.

The pacing and editing isn't too bad and tries to keep the film tempo up, considering not a lot of action is really taking place. It has enough reflection with some lovely cinematography in parts. The dance sequence and several shots involving fire are well done.

However the film script seems to avoid the true grit and terror of the situation. Focusing on being a court room drama for the most part is a huge blow and the film lags in statements that seem to just repeat. Some of the camera work is also sloppy, as if the cinematographer was fired or replaced at certain points. And the sound recording has clearly been neglected. (typical on low funded films) The Director seems to have kept in scenes where audio could clearly not be saved in editing which is frustrating at best.

Overall the film feels like it never truly hits the emotional strings that it could have and comes across as a missed opportunity.