ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

YOU Cannot fault Australia on the grounds of ambition. Baz Luhrmann has attempted to make a sweeping romantic epic in the great tradition of Gone With The Wind that also acknowledges the guilty legacy of his country’s treatment of the native Aboriginal population.

He fills the screen with gorgeous scenery, daredevil action sequences and tear-jerking melodrama, but the combination of high camp comedy and cartoon characters proves all too easy to resist over a running time that nudges three hours.

Steeped in movie cliches, Australia has the boisterous feel of a John Ford western as high-falutin’ English rose Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) arrives in 1930s Darwin, where the heat, dust and boorish locals are not to her taste.

Her destination is the Faraway Downs cattle farm which her late husband was attempting to forge into a successful business. Accompanied by rough-hewn Drover (Hugh Jackman), she soon discovers that the only way to save the farm is to drive a vast herd of cattle across the country.

That is just the first of many obstacles she has to face as greedy cattle baron King Carney (Bryan Brown) and his incredibly evil henchman Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) scheme to ensure that she fails.

The plot of Australia is easy to predict as the initial hostility between Sarah and Drover melts into a swoon of romance, the war intrudes on their lives and Sarah becomes deeply attached to half-caste charmer Nullah (Brandon Walters).

What is less easy to predict is the tone of a film that lurches from very broad comedy to shameless sentimentality and is so corny at times that it attracts derision rather than admiration. Some of the actors seem convinced they are appearing in a pantomime and what should have been Luhrmann’s masterpiece feels like a bit of a joke and a very long haul.

If you are seeking a slice of gaudy, undemanding escapism to brighten a winter’s night then Australia might fit the bill, but after all the hype and expense it has to be judged a major disappointment.

Nationwide release

Director: Baz Luhrmann
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Bryan Brown, David Wenham, Brandon Walters.
Screenwriters: Baz Luhrmann, Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood, Robert Flanagan.
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 165 mins
Country: Australia
Year: 2008