A Taut Chase Movie From Down Under

We all know about the elevator pitch. A statement of purpose whose efficacy is, in significant part, dependent on how little time is expended in its telling. Thirty-seconds is pushing it; a minute is too much. How did Al Kalyk sell his debut feature, “Cruel Hands?” That the movie clocks in at an hour-and-a-quarter is less indicative of its brevity than the outline of the plot.After the opening production credits have flitted by, the parameters of this thriller are laid out: A mother and child escape the dominion of an abusive husband. Mom has a gun. Dad has a temper. Both are tenacious. Their preadolescent son is conflicted. What else would you expect? Let the pursuit begin.The history of cinema is rife with chase movies. What’s notable about Mr. Kalyk’s is its cultural context and economy of means. “Cruel Hands” takes place in 2019, a time in which bushfires raged in Australia, primarily along the southeastern coast. A so-called “black summer” lasted into the next year, coloring the skies not only black, but a thick, hellish orange. This livid tone is yoked in Mr. Kalyk’s movie, serving as an effective backdrop to its tense final moments.The on-your-mark, get-set, go nature of “Cruel Hands” seems, at least to this observer, pointed in its aims. Major theatrical releases are getting longer in running time — the standard superhero epic can clock in at close to two-and-a-half hours. Streaming platforms are top-heavy with limited-run series, ventures that are less like television seasons of yore than distended motion pictures. Brevity isn’t always the soul of wit, but there’s something to be said for the necessities bred by compression.In its attention to an ungovernable natural world and the burdens of isolation, “Cruel Hands” puts one in mind of another Aussie picture, Ted Kotcheff’s “Wake In Fright” (1971). Though Mr. Kalyk’s picture does take some harsh narrative turns, it is nowhere near as nihilistic as that memorable cult favorite. Still, relentlessness is the rule and efficiency the artistic tack. Once you set eyes on Mr. Kalyk’s movie you are committed. He’s good at his job.“Cruel Hands” is linear in its story, but the construction of it is piecemeal. Flashbacks provide grounding for the movie’s trajectory. Mr. Kalyk, along with editors Philip Horn and Tucker Morrison, are nimble at juxtaposing informational bits-and-pieces without halting forward momentum. We are never left in the lurch by the filmmaker’s often complicated machinations. Would that this crew had gotten hold of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.”Marie (a breathless, beautiful and bedraggled Mavounee Hazel) and Dai (Diesel La Torraca) escape the family home while her brutish husband, Jason (Josh McConville), sleeps off a hard day’s night. As must be with a movie of this sort, their flight isn’t as fleet as it could be, though they are helped by a getaway driver, Aunt Lucille (Geneviève Lemon). Mother-and-son hunker down in Lucille’s dilapidated country home, not only hoping to escape Jason’s clutches, but the authorities who are evacuating the area because of the brushfires. There are few places to hide and less places to run.“Cruel Hands” shouldn’t be oversold. Too often the movie comes off as an exercise in form rather than a full-fledged fiction, and Jason is too ready of a villain for my tastes. Still, Mr. Kalyk, who co-wrote the screenplay with brother Matthew, runs roughshod over doubt with a surety that is never flashy or glib. Here’s a film that does a genre proud even as it intimates more ambitious undertakings.

A Taut Chase Movie From Down Under

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