Red Hill

Red Hill is an old-fashioned sleeper, the kind of overlooked genre movie that would have made year-end best-of DVD lists back when people still watched DVDs. Ryan Kwanten (True Blood) makes a serviceable lead as Shane Cooper, an Australian policeman who accepts a “sleepy” small-town post for the benefit of his pregnant wife. The compelling soul of the film is Tommy Lewis as Jimmy, a stone-faced Aborigine convict who escapes from prison on Shane’s first day, and returns to town to exact an unspecified vengeance. Writer-director Patrick Hughes has clearly seen The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, High Plains Drifter, and every Charles Bronson revenge movie 17 times apiece, and he achieves a similar atmosphere of supernatural dread here. The pacing is inconsistent, and Hughes ties up more story threads than necessary, but Red Hill is a solid rental from a promising first-time filmmaker. (Daniel Barnes)