Blame (2011)
Strong violence and coarse language
| Director: | Michael Henry |
| Actors: | Damian De Montemas, Sophie Lowe, Kestie Morassi, Simon Stone, Mark Leonard Winter, Ashley Zukerman |
Testing the fibre of friendship and the spirit of conviction, Blame is a confronting tale of twisted revenge and bitter betrayal. Driven by the grief of a deceased colleague, five conspiring friends set out to exact revenge against the man responsible and invade the isolated outback home of middle-aged music teacher Bernard (Damian de Montemas). Confident that their victim's death by his own hand will not raise suspicion, the group leaves the scene of the crime without the slightest hint of compunction. Reluctantly returning to retrieve an incriminating cell phone, they soon discover that Bernard is not only alive, but desperately determined to manipulate the situation to the benefit of his survival. As motives are questioned and the looming shadow of culpability grows, it is only a matter of time before the tight-knit group must negotiate the perilous bridge between trust and the truth.
Compelling to the last detail, Blame features an ensemble of dynamic young talent including Kestie Morassi, Sophie Lowe, Simon Stone, Mark Leonard Winter and Ashley Zukerman.
| Status: | QuickPick |
|---|---|
| Run time: | 89mins |
| Origin: | AUSTRALIA |
| Aspect Ratio: | 16:9 |
| Run Time: | 89mins |
|---|---|
| File Size (Approx): | 0.8 GB |
Not enough rope
by Simon Miraudo, 14/06/2011 10:59:00 AM
Michael Henry’s Blame clearly takes inspiration from the greats, and the writer/director certainly recognises the ingredients required for a taut psychological thriller, but he doesn’t quite follow through in the execution. It begins with a seemingly innocent man attacked in his remote country house by a bunch of smartly dressed teenagers. Their motives are slowly revealed over the course of the film, and the presumed innocence of their prisoner is put into question. Within the confines of this small house, power relationships shift and our understandings of the characters evolve. In that sense, Blame gets the genre just right, and there are brief flashes of brilliance that evoke Alfred Hitchcock and Agatha Christie. But the tension isn’t ratcheted to levels high enough to give us a real s...
Michael Henry’s Blame clearly takes inspiration from the greats, and the writer/director certainly recognises the ingredients required for a taut psychological thriller, but he doesn’t quite follow through in the execution. It begins with a seemingly innocent man attacked in his remote country house by a bunch of smartly dressed teenagers. Their motives are slowly revealed over the course of the film, and the presumed innocence of their prisoner is put into question. Within the confines of this small house, power relationships shift and our understandings of the characters evolve. In that sense, Blame gets the genre just right, and there are brief flashes of brilliance that evoke Alfred Hitchcock and Agatha Christie. But the tension isn’t ratcheted to levels high enough to give us a real sense of escalation, and ultimately it feels like a sincere tribute to Hitchcock and Christie, but not a modern-day companion piece.
The “innocent” man is Bernard (Damian de Montemas), a music teacher who has fled the city following an incident with a young student. Living a seemingly idyllic life of isolation with his dog, he comes home one day and is bum-rushed by a group of young ski-mask clad intruders. They tie him to a chair, force him to down some sleeping tablets, and wait for him to OD. When his body stops writhing and his heart stops beating, the five assailants remove any trace of their involvement and get the hell out of dodge. But when they discover an incriminating phone has been left at the scene of the crime, the assassins double back, and see that Bernard’s “corpse” is not where they had left it.
Montemas is excellent as Bernard; his performance brings to mind that of Patrick Wilson in Hard Candy, a similar revenge tale in which our “victim” is revealed to be a sexual predator. He does much of the hard lifting in the film, when it should ideally be spread across all six of the main characters. Kestie Morassi and Sophie Lowe – as the sister and best friend of Bernard’s recently deceased teen lover respectively – do some nice work as they wrestle with the moral implications of carrying out a murder. The three fellows who lend a hand – Simon Stone, Mark Leonard Winter and Ashley Zukerman – don’t fare quite as well with their underwritten characters; Stone in particular spends much of the picture screaming outlandishly.
The story is sound, and the script – also written by Henry - is tight; what we really needed here is some stylistic panache. The visual execution and editing is fairly flat, which doesn’t really help a thriller (even Hitchcock's Rope - perhaps Blame's most obvious ancestor - tried an interesting, if gimmicky, approach to the material). Without tension, the stakes feel low, when really they should be through the roof. It wants to be a thoughtful exploration of morality, and it wants to be a fun, self-contained little genre chiller. Instead, it just feels like a script on a screen – nothing more and nothing less.
2/5
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Member Reviews (5)
5 Member
Reviews
Annie S
says
Well done to another Australian movie about young people thumbing their way to commit a murder with all kinds of mistakes with the big mistake being "are we supposed to be doing this".. A good look into the characters who all show their true selves under pressure. Keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Nigel W
says
A planned murder goes awry when things are revealed to be not quite as they originally seemed. Nice plot which doesn’t quite work on the screen. Maybe the performances could have been a little stronger and the script tightened up a bit.
Lance
says
an excellent aussie thriller,that i found very entertaining from start to finish with a rather un-expected ending..i give this a 6.5 outta 10
dfe
says
Why do film makers use the family dog as a shape of what is to come.I loathe this tactic and ejected the disk after the first 5 minutes without even clicking the next key.
gerd
says
Quite intriguing as the film only slowly reveals what it's about. The story though is better than the acting. Some of the characters are not well developed and their relationship to each other is also left fairly obscure. The hot WA summer landscape imposes itself on the mood. It's a courageous Australian effort to do something a bit different, and as noted in the 'Behind the Scenes' feature, to do so in record time and on a small budget.