Film review: The Mule - the seedy side of Australia
This grimy little suburban Australian drama grabbed attention last year both for its subject matter and for the ingenious way it was marketed and released.
Angus Sampson, Hugo Weaving, Leigh Whannell
Directors: Tony Mahony and Angus Sampson
This grimy little suburban Australian drama grabbed attention last year both for its subject matter and for the ingenious way it was marketed and released.
First, it's a factual retelling of a case in Melbourne in the 1980s, in which a dimwitted drug mule (here played by Angus Sampson) tried to keep his stash tucked away in his back end for longer than the police were legally allowed to keep him under observation in a hotel room.
As the ordeal edges towards the 10-day mark, things get pretty grim - as you'd imagine they would if you had multiple packs of heroin floating around your insides.
Surrounding the scenes inside the hotel room - where the police (led by Hugo Weaving relishing the chance to reveal his nastier side) try to force a confession and/or the substances out of the mule - we have a back story of inter-Asia drug dealing and suburban desperation.
Nothing Australian cinema hasn't served up before - the wonderful Animal Kingdom (2010) remains the genre's recent high water mark - but for the most part taken on with such relish by the cast that you remain engaged, even when you're wincing in some sort of sympathy for the man writhing away there on the hotel bed.