✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Australia · 2013
2h 1m
Director Ivan Sen
Starring Aaron Pedersen, Hugo Weaving, Jack Thompson, Ryan Kwanten
Genre Thriller, Crime, Mystery
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An indigenous detective returns to the Outback to investigate the murder of a young girl.
The measured narrative and anti-climactic finale do mean that Mystery Road doesn’t pander to all tastes, and it never conforms to thriller conventions, but Sen has undoubtedly succeeded in fashioning a thoroughly engrossing journey into a modern Australian wilderness that’s well worth seeking out.
The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak
I won’t lie and say Mystery Road kept me on the edge of my seat for its duration, but there is a lot to enjoy in its delicately peeled back layers.
The Guardian by Leslie Felperin
The whole thing might have been improved by slightly nippier pacing, but the slow-burn action pays off with a spectacular climactic gun-fight, where the distances are so vast it takes half a second for bullets to find their marks.
Deliberately paced and expertly acted by a weathered ensemble including Hugo Weaving, Mystery Road also boasts some of cinema’s most gorgeous magic-hour photography even if, elsewhere, light is in perilously short supply.
The lucky ones died in the blast