Goldstone

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Goldstone is a sequel to Mystery Road which I thought was a deadly dull and disappointing thriller. Goldstone is slightly better going for that scandi noir on the Australian outback vibe. It is still a slow burner and has plenty of things that it shares with Mystery Road. The dark underbelly of the Australian outback, corruption and long range rifle shooting. We first see a drunk Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) being arrested by a young cop Josh Waters who discovers that the man he has put in the cell is a cop. Swan has gone to the small outback settlement of Goldstone searching for a missing Asian girl. No one wants to talk to him. Goldstone might get some life with a potentially lucrative mining deal built on corruption. It also has some Chinese sex slaves who have been trafficked. Swan join forces with Waters to investigate further. The locals are not happy, it is a good job Swan is aiming to improve his shooting skills. The most memorable part of the film is when Swan gives a lift to an Aboriginal elder played by David Gulpilil who tells Swan that he knew his father and the perils of worshipping money. The film lacks originality. I thought the rock that Swan is shooting from was the same one where Hugo Weaving did something similar in Mystery Road. The pace is just too languid.

The harsh climate of the Australian Outback is best watched on film or TV rather than actually living there, and Goldstone does it full justice. The driftwood and sand color palette corrugated iron shacks in the vast flat ochre landscape is stunning and the film is worth seeing for this if nothing else. I loved the slow almost dreamy style unusual for an action film, but unfortunately, due to the glacial pace of the action there isn't much else. Although Aaron Pedersen does a credible job, he really isn't given much to do, unlike the prequel, Mystery Road, he spends most of his time getting drunk or sobering up, with no explanation as to why he is on the grog. Maybe he needs a woman to brighten up his life. I am giving this film a 9 as it is the most visually beautiful arid desert photography since Lawrence of Arabia, but it lost a point with the tired old clichéd story line. How many more times are we going to see the big mining company acquiring land by foul means from indigenous people and farming folk who don't know any better, or if they do, are powerless to do anything about it? The mining companies have the politicians in their pockets and are allowed free rein to fence off property and guard it with private security thugs to hide the illegal activities which are going on. Their nefarious plans are usually exposed when someone goes missing, which brings in a nosy outside investigator with problems of his own who manages to survive various attempts to buy him off or kill him off. I am not knocking the story line, 'The Code' with an almost identical plot kept me awake all night as I binged on the episodes, but the familiarity makes the outcome predictable. My big question is where do they get the electricity to power the air conditioning those trailers must need in the furnace of the outback? Instead of shooting at people, all Jay and Josh had to do to flush out the villains was shoot out the trailer windows and the heat would have brought out the occupants in seconds. Lastly, although we never see a cell tower, I want to know how they always manage to get perfect cell phone reception in the middle of nowhere, when I can't get a perfect signal in a heavily populated area of 25 million. Does Australia have secret long range cell phone technology which they are keeping from the rest of us? Before watching Goldstone I was going to watch Mystery Road, but unfortunately Netflix has dropped it. Shame!

At nearly 2 hrs it drags and drags and drags and drags. Scenes meander for 10 minutes for no reason, monologues that don't advance the plot go on forever. And the music overwhelms the dialog as if there's going to be some sort of emotional epiphany. Which there is not. There's no real mystery here they state what's going on in the first 15 minutes and the story wanders around in a predictable way in this morally gray universe. It's hot and flat and barren and bleak and wise indigenous folk do spiritual indigenous stuff.

Amazing how this guy never has to eat and never has to put gas in his vehicle. And he can come through the car wreck and gun battle at the end without a scratch even though at the time he seemed near death, not being able to walk or even pull the trigger of his gun. With his car rolled and smashed he jumps in another car at the end and takes off. Who did that one belong to? Were the keys just left in it? I love Australian movies and actors but this was not credible.

The pacing is too slow. I had to watch it at 1.5x speed to bear it. The main character is a barely tolerable drunk, tolerable only because he was working for the good cause. The plots of the film played out poorly and were unclear. It felt like a train leaving the station and then never getting anywhere. Only the connection between the two policemen played out well, I give it three stars because the cameramen did a good job, and some of the actors were good.

Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Penderson) is back on the road again following his crime clean-up on Mystery Road. He is searching for a missing girl which takes him back to his roots in Goldstone to a group that mostly disowns him. He comes across more corruption and forced prostitution with everyone in the mining town on the take. He shames the local sheriff (Alex Russell) into doing his job. Swan is a man who likes his drink, and doesn't always shoot straight. This is another semi-gritty crime drama with some action scenes. While this story follows and references "Mystery Road" it is not required that one see that film in order to watch this one. If you didn't like "Mystery Road" don't bother with this one. Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

source: Goldstone

I watched this to the end only because the bad guys were so over the top bad I wanted to watch them get their comeuppance. The main lead says about 10 words through the whole movie. He out-Clinted Clint in that department. I never understood what he was doing there anyway. Searching for a missing girl? No backstory to it and when he finds her body - nothing happens about it. There's a mayor of a town? What town? All we say was a few trailers and a shack or two.

This Aussie backcountry crime script brings the old familiars of greedy corporations paying off politicians, police, etc. to make sure their perhaps environmentally & culturally not nice shortcut practices go through w/out hinderance by do-gooders. Positives: 1. Great desert scenery; oddly almost no indigenous wildlife. Production crews must have scared them off. The town & other habitats made of modular structures standing isolated in that desert was really interesting. The open pit mining blast was a highlight. 2. Good, but not great, attention paid to indigenous peoples cultural concerns. Overall could have used better explanation. One scene of a water carved canyon w/indigenous rock paintings & pictographs was cool, again needed more explanation. Negatives: 1. For all English speaking peoples of different dialects in N. American, G.B. and everywhere else, and for all hearing challenged peoples of the world it is demeaning (and money saving cheap) to not include subtitles. Made even worse w/really poor enunciation by some of the actors. 2. Script didn't have a easily understandable flow to it's story. Made worse by lots of poorly, and unexplained backgrounds to events. 3. The main plot of a potential billion dollar investment being threatened w/stupid small scale crime made no sense. And our investigative detective being uncomfortable with a gun seemed incongruous.