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Dir. Baz Luhrmann

Rating: 4.3  |  0 User Reviews  |  Send to Friend

By Jes Sipling

If I were writer/director Baz Luhrmann, I’d probably kick myself for giving every film critic such a perfect analogy for my newest offering. Because this epic, gorgeous ode to Luhrmann’s homeland swells and dies, then swells again, as sharply as Australia’s seasons of wet and dry (which he points out incessantly) come and go. Set during the second World War, the story introduces us to the properly English Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) after the murder of her husband and the impending takeover of their cattle ranch in northern Australia by a rival beef tycoon (Bryan Brown) and his devious employee (David Wenham). To save her ranch she must to race to sell her cattle to the army, an effort that requires the Drover (Hugh Jackman), a disgruntled, rugged piece of sex on legs that makes Dundee look like a skinny boy.  Because Lady Ashley and the Drover instantly hate each other (this doesn’t last long), he agrees to help only to protect the livelihood of the staff living in her husband’s house, including a half-white half-aborigine child, Nullah (Brandon Walters), whose mystical twinkling voice also narrates the film. Extremely shorthanded, the team collected to drove is positively comical: a nanny, a recovering drunk, a pissed off Chinese cook, and the ten-year-old Nullah. But by the time the pack heads out across the outback, you're already bored. And that is only 40 minutes into what ends up being a two-and-a-half-hour grind. It’s certainly not that Luhrmann didn’t have a plethora of dramatic possibilities; he gives us war, love between unlikely characters, a thrilling competition, racial injustice, a cute kid and even some voodoo. Furthermore, Kidman, his apparent muse, gives a stunning performance, the best of which is her nervous quirky rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” a song that unfortunately becomes a convoluted element to the tale later on. But despite Luhrmann’s visionary style, pointed humor, and good taste in movie music, it seems it’s just too many balls to juggle with not enough hands and an interminable amount of time in doing so. 

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