Razorback

Starring: Arkie Whiteley, Gregory Harrison Original UK Premiere: 1983 Dvd Release: 25th April, 2005 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: PAL, Widescreen, Region 2 Encoding

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From its atmospheric start, establishing the loneliness, isolation, & vast beauty of the Australian Outback, director Russell Mulcahy grapples to make sense of the competing images & themes which recur in this potentially excellent horror movie. Its not a bad film, far from it, but you know it could have been so much better.

The wonderful Bill Kerr plays an Outback hunter, Jake Cullen, whose grandchild is carried off by a giant razorback ... a sort of angst-ridden wild boar with attitude & very bad breath. Partly inspired by the dingo & the disappearing baby case, Mulcahy never adequately resolves this aspect, leaving it as background. Instead, he introduces an American investigative journalist & animal rights campaigner, come to Australia to investigate the widespread slaughter of kangaroos for pet food. When she meets a grizzly, if rather coy end, her husband appears trying to track down his errant wife. The animal rights / eco-warrior themes & allusions, like the disappearing grandchild, now become pretty much redundant.

The husband, instead, enters a Texas Chainsaw canning factory & befriends, then alienates the crazies who run it. The film now becomes a chase, with hunted turning hunter, & a fresh love interest injected in the form of Arkie Whiteley. The plot gets just a little too cluttered, yet remains under-developed in places, so the tension & dynamic need to be jump-started from time to time.

Mulcahy , gives us a hotch-potch of images while failing to adequately sustain plot or build character. He plays with the visual possibilities of the Outback - the vast skies & spaces, the intense colours, the lighting contrast of shadow & day & night, the variety of landscape ... at times almost lunar, at others reminiscent of the Western Front & trench warfare.

Inspired, in part, by the dingo case, Mulcahy pays lavish tribute to Jaws - you find yourself playing spot the influence at times. There are Mad Max style vehicles - ominous armoured confections with lots of spikes & sharp bits. There are macho crazies ... & images of humanity. And there are moments of surprising humour.

But Mulcahy never quite keeps control of the film. It really is excellent in places ... there is so much potential, not least in the roles of Bill Kerr & Arkie Whiteley ... but plot, characters, & themes needed to be handled more thoroughly. In the end, the monster is about as scary as a discarded wig.

This is well worth watching - indeed, you can watch it again & again & still enjoy it. But you are left feeling that this, potentially, was a first class film which somehow escaped - it has some very fine moments, but its let down by naive plot development & indecisive direction.

Gregory Harrison is a television actor. He is probably best known for his starring role as Gonzo Gates on the CBS series Trapper John, M,D. He was also the title character on the sci-fi series Logans Run. Harrisons later role as stripper John Phillips in the 1981 TV movie For Ladies Only made him a favorite with women & gay men in the 1980s. Harrison was a regular in the final season of Falcon Crest. Harrison recently starred in the WB Network s Safe Harbor & has made guest appearances on numerous other shows such as Touched by an Angel, Judging Amy & Reunion. Since 1981, Harrison has been married to actress Randi Oakes. The couple has four children, three girls & a boy. Gregory Harrison at the Internet Movie Database. Posters Of Razorback

Editors Choice: Mortal Fear, A Christmas Romance, Razorback, Seduced, Summer Of Fear, View DVDology

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