Philadelphia Weekly

Web head: New Releases Web subhead: Australia, Pray the Devil Back to Hell and Twilight-->

New Releases

Australia
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
D+ Reviewed by Matt Prigge
Opens Wed., Nov. 26

First a bland and toothless film about 9/11 and George W. Bush by Oliver Stone, now a dull Baz Luhrmann extravaganza. What's next? Even fans of the traumatically batshit Moulin Rouge! have to admit the mad, absinthe-swilling Aussie had to dial things down several notches. But it appears Luhrmann only does extremes. And so Australia, his belated follow-up to Rouge!, is as big as the continent and as generic as the title--an epic, endless and undistinguished slog that will likely only be remembered as a nearly-three-hours-long catnap.

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman headline an all-Australian cast as a British aristocrat and a cattle driver named Drover, respectively. The two fall ever so reluctantly in love. Upon flying south to sell an inherited ranch in the middle of the Outback, Kidman gets embroiled in a scheme to shortchange her, if not outright kill her, involving a meat baron (Bryan Brown) and a sniveling baddie (David Wenham).

Spanning WWII, Australia is, like Rabbit-Proof Fence before it, careful to skip over the country's shameful treatment of its Aboriginal population, often telling the story from the perspective of a half-Aboriginal boy (Brandon Walters) who becomes Kidman and Jackman's semi-adopted son. At the same time, though, it's not above employing the stereotype of the noble and ultimately sacrificial black guy.

Based on a highly derivative story by Luhrmann, Australia changes gears several times, at one point turning into a so-so cattle-drive Western and wrapping up as a protracted Pearl Harbor rip-off. As it tosses off inexplicable allusions to The Wizard of Oz, Australia aspires to that other Victor Fleming film of 1939, Gone With the Wind, but only succeeds in a banality you wouldn't expect from the dude who unleashed Strictly Ballroom.

The Luhrmann we know, love and are annoyed by makes himself known in the obnoxiously spastic first act, which boasts his usual broad acting, ultrawide camera angles, fast cutting, distracting CGI backgrounds and gratuitous shirtless scenes from People's current Sexiest Man Alive. But Luhrmann quickly calms down--and to a fault. Eventually the shots last the normal length, the humor drops and he tries to take everything very, very seriously.

And with that, Australia becomes the unpleasant experience of watching an artist--an annoying artist, yes, but at least a unique one--shuck his voice to become an anonymous hack. I never thought I'd say this, but here's a movie that needs to be more Luhrmann-esque.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell
Directed by Gini Reticker
B
Reviewed by Matt Prigge
Opens Fri., Nov. 28

It only took about a week after the election for critics to deride works that offer bleak, pessimistic views of the Bush II-era world. In that respect, Gini Reticker's Pray the Devil Back to Hell seems eerily prescient. A doc on semi-recent events in the African nation of Liberia, it offers up an unlikely tale of hope and good-overcoming-evil that's almost Obamaesque.

Of course, those who aren't hip to news from modern-day Liberia might not initially get those connotations. A nation founded by freed African slaves, Liberia slipped into chaos and violent civil conflict in the late '80s, paving the way for all-around scoundrel Charles Taylor to charm and bully his way into power. Significantly aided by his most devious trick--indoctrinating preteen boys into an army of wild, roaming terrorists--Taylor was careful to keep his dystopian country in just enough turmoil to thwart any organized rebellion.

And yet by the turn of the century, a peace initiative was formed through women, both Christian and Muslim, who sought to find ways to get the nation's men to put down their guns and get Taylor convicted of war crimes. Using tactics as varied as withholding sex from their husbands, putting ancient curses on their sons and some good old-fashioned picketing, they eventually managed to get Taylor exiled to Nigeria. And in 2005 Liberia became the first African nation to elect a female president.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell is only 72 minutes long, shorn down to the bare essentials and able to convey deep emotion and immediacy without slipping into overstatement or repetition. Reticker smartly realizes that the story, which is as tall as tales get, is a corker and relates it from the side of the victors--women who, through choked-back tears, relate unspeakable tales of being raped by soldiers in front of their husbands and of enlisted kids being forced to gun down their own parents.

Pray the Devil is careful not to be overly sunny about what lies on the horizon, but in our current hope-is-on-the-way era, it'll be hard to leave the theater without goose bumps.