Outback 2019 * * * Stars

Director: Mike Green
Year: 2019
Rated R
Rating: * * * Stars
Cast: Kym Cramp, Brendan Donoghue

"Crikey, blimey". "No worries, mate, she'll be right". 2019's Outback is my latest review. Shot on location in Sydney, Australia, it's a flick about a man and his annoying girlfriend who get lost in "the Land Down Under's" far off interior. Without food, sound judgement, water, or a sense of where they left their car, the couple drink their own urine and encounter some really poisonous varmints.

So yeah, I've seen perilous stuff like this before. I've just never seen it done without hand-held gimmicks or the pitfalls of pretentiousness. Just imagine 2002's Gerry but with a less arty approach and that's what you get with Outback. Also imagine Open Water but without I guess, water.

Outback's cinematography by Tim Nagle is panoramic and deft and the "why so serious?" musical score is all together pouncing. Rookie Mike Green's direction is stalling yet on the level. You ultimately wish Paul Hogan would just show up and help these torn lovebirds find their way back to civilization. You also wish an Aboriginal would come along and propel you to think your way through.

Outback is effective, hallucinatory, dour, well-acted, and has a slight sense of desolate agoraphobia. As a two-person show and a supposed true account, you roll your eyes at the characters for making such bad decisions but you also feel sorry for their unpalatable (and nasty) state of being.

Outback does have a happy ending but not a complete and fulfilling happy ending. The fact that one of these vacationers survived as long as they did with cell service after a few days, is beyond my comprehension. Alas, it's only a movie.

So OK, Outback is no masterpiece but as something that gives you a feeling of being demoralized and left out on the lurch, it gets the job done. Outback as Aussie swallowing beauty, doesn't "crack". Rating: 3 stars. 

Written by Jesse Burleson