Spikeopath Red Hill is written and directed by Patrick Hughes. It stars Ryan Kwanten, Steve Bisley, Tom E. Lewis and Claire van der Boom. Music is by Dmitri Golovko and cinematography by Tim Hudson.Young city cop Shane Cooper (Kwanten) gets a transfer to Red Hill, a place he hopes is a quiet enough town for himself and his pregnant wife to successfully raise a family. But his arrival at work coincides with the escape from prison of aborigine Jimmy Conway (Lewis), who is heading into town with revenge firmly on his mind.Jimmy Conway has escaped and he's bringing hell into town.Utterly splendid Neo-Western out of Australia. For his feature film debut, Patrick Hughes has crafted a loving homage to the Western genre whilst also imbuing his film with its own suspenseful blood. Blending Ozploitaton thriller values with Western genre staples of the past, Red Hill unspools on narrative terms as a gritty and rugged revenge piece.Red Hill the town is fronted by gruff sheriff Old Bill (Bisley), he leads a pack of scuzzy characters who consider it their town and god help anyone who stands in their way. Into this maelstrom comes fresh faced Shane Cooper (yes the name is Alan Ladd and High Noon purposely spliced together), a genuine and honest copper harnessing a tragedy as well as a moral code that's not for shaking.After quickly finding out that Old Bill is lacking in human graces, Shane finds himself coming face to face with Conway, who is all the horsemen of the apocalypse rolled into one. Face badly scarred and adorned with weapons and duster, Conway seems to have supernatural resources to go with his expert tracking skills and knowledge of the surrounding outback terrain (so think High Plains Drifter & Chato's Land then).How come, though, that as he callously goes about killing off members of the scuzzy crew, each time he meets up with Shane, who is in full tilt survival mode, Conway refuses to kill Shane? And just what is that symbolic Panther doing stalking the edges of the landscape? One and the same, perhaps? It will of course all be revealed, and in truth it's no great surprise, the beauty is in how Hughes has toyed with our perceptions about Conway, this in turn makes for a cracker-jack finale.Performances are superbly in tune with the material, Cooper, Lewis and Bisley really manage to steer their respective characters away from being histrionic or cartoonish. Musically it features stabs of delightful grungy rock blending in with Golovko's mournfully ironic score. The widescreen photography is most interesting, in that there's often smart shifting between a washed out palette to emphasise the remoteness of the setting, to opened up capturing of the beautiful vistas (filmed on location in Omeo, Victoria). The Blu-ray is a must for anyone interested in the film.The sparse location is matched by sparse dialogue, there is no need for extraneous conversations or pointless filler, Hughes knows what he is doing. It's made with love and respect to one of the finest of film genres, and hooray to that! 8/10

Sergio Borrallo Tirado SPOILERS SPOILERS First, I would like to say 2 things: - I really love revenge movies. I really do. They are one of my favourite plots in movies. -I am super lazy about writing reviews. I really am. This is my first review. Why am I writing it so? Because THE MOVIE IS JUST TERRIBLE, one of the worst I've ever seen. I wont criticize the plot, or the acting, or the soundtrack. They are kind of OK. But jeez, they are some scenes that are AWFUL. So if u hate movies where silly things happen and no one cares, just don't watch this film. The panther scene (I get the point of the director, but cOme on); the revenge guy being some kind of Mexican ninja (with boomerang included, impossible to kill, with superpowers (I guess one of them is to make the people around him retarded, because come on, why no one can shoot him properly?)... It is all stupidly unbelievable and childish. But, OVER ALL, what the hell is the scene with the main character cover full of blood, in his house, and the wife asking him "did u cut your face?" "No, its only a scratch". And the guy half, dead, pouring blood, like a zombie. COME ON!!!! I really thought that the wife was blind and I missed this point in the beginning of the movie. But not, she is not. I guess her husband comes every night cover with blood from job and it is alright. Whatever... REALLY, HORRIBLE MOVIE, Don't WASTE UR TIME, IT IS SHAMELESS

David Holt (rawiri42) To fully appreciate Red Hill, I think you need to be an Australian. Not that that means you won't enjoy it if you're not. Nonetheless, there is definitely an unmistakable 'difference' from your typical western genre thriller movie that can only really be attributed to the Australian psyche.Having so said, I agree with several other reviewers that Red Hill is well worth the watch. Ryan Kwanten played the part of Shane Cooper, the new-cop-in-town well - although I wondered how long he had been a cop in the city because he was a bit timid to start with even though he had a past incident that framed him as maybe too compassionate to be a hard- nosed law officer. He was clearly a human being who cared and also happened to be a cop! Steve Bisley was every bit the "this is MY town" local sheriff (except that, in this modern version, he's a police inspector who just thinks he's the Wyatt Earp of Red Hill) and plays the part brilliantly.Then there's the protagonist Jimmy Conway excellently played by Tommy Lewis, a Northern Territory Aboriginal from way back. What other reviewers have totally failed to understand is that Tommy plays Jimmy exactly as he would have been in real life - all action and no talk! The make-up crew did an excellent job on him too.The plot is a bit "Blue Heelerish" (for you non-Aussies, that was a very popular TV series set in much the same environment as Red Hill) except that likable Sergeant Tom Croydon was very different from Steve Bisley's Bill.I would have liked to see a bit more development of the wild animal side-plot which I feel was left a bit up in the air (maybe there's a sequel planned to deal with that). All-in-all, a good movie that was pretty true to form (given the true circumstances - which aren't revealed until the very end).

Daniel Hollis The only western I've watched this year being the Coen's version of True Grit, Red Hill has a lot to live up to. Ryan Kwanten plays Shane Cooper, a young police officer who has just moved to the isolated town of Red Hill. His first day goes off course though as a local prison has a breakout and convicted criminal, Jimmy Conway (Played by Tommy Lewis) is on the loose and heading for Red Hill. This simple story has a lot going for it accompanied with an excellent shot choice, reminiscent of the Coen's 'No Country For Old Men', in fact, the whole film felt like a homage to western's in general and that's the main flaw of the film. It never has it's own voice; it feels like bits picked from various other and more rounded films so doesn't give it's own flavor.It can be commended however on it's playful way of mixing horror into the mix. There were countless scenes where the tension was dialed up to 11 making it an edge of the seat experience, not relying on quiet environments followed by loud bangs to get inside the audience's head. It was a very atmospheric piece and Tommy Lewis's representation of Jimmy Conway added to that having a terrifying yet, electrifying screen presence truly invoking a sense of dread into you whenever he was on screen.While far from being perfect Red Hill is a perfectly fine nuts and bolts westerns with enough plot twists and turns to keep you interested. You just can't help but get a strong sense of déjà vu within the viewing and reminds you of other and far better westerns which have truly earned their rights of classics. Red Hill isn't a classic, but it's a damn good time.