Reviews on movie Fair Game (2)

Watching the out-of-competition program of one of the last festivals in Gerarmer, I noticed this tape. I am in a hurry to share my observations. The film is worth watching.

Okay. We are immersed in the world of wild Australia. Remote from civilization reserve. Wasteland. It was as if there was no civilization or it was buried by a universal catastrophe. No one, just a few souls and a few animals.

A young and pretty girl engaged in the mentioned reserve encounters a gang of comic villains. There is not a single “mad Max” who is ready to help the heroine. I don’t expect any help from outside.

You will say that this is nothing new and you are right. The plot is not new, but interesting presentation, presentation.

The authors of the tape are unusually poetic. There is also a scorched Australian land. The violence itself has been shown quite correctly. Instead of the expected heavy tortures, we get “riding on the hood of a car in knife-cut clothing.” Obviously, the authors meant something quite different, but sparing the viewer showed the general outlines of the violence itself.

And the confrontation itself is slow, careful and measured. The viewer is simply shown that often the victim and the aggressor can switch places.
The heroine in all this acts as an epic hero. It relies not so much on its own strength as on the environment, which strengthens and saves it in each episode.
All together very favorably distinguishes this film from the typical "revenge-movies" selected semantic accents. But do not forget that we are not at all an art house, but a good old exploitative movie.
7 out of 10

Athlete, Komsomol and just a beauty lives alone in the middle of the Australian thicket, a certain protected area, and it is unclear how it contains an impressive farm of various animals. But somehow, on the way to the local district center, the girl is literally pushed out of the way by a trio of unfriendly poachers in a van and a jeep with an impressive “kangaroot”, on which our heroine has yet to “ride”. The conflict gradually grows, and the film is transformed into the expected cat and mouse, where it is easy to guess who at first will act as a mouse.

It looks easy. Due to the predominance of yellow-orange colors, the picture came out quite juicy, the camera work is smooth. The trinity of bad guys is a standard image: a brutal, silent leader in a hat, a chatty big guy and a scoop with a camera. The heroine is a young compassionate person with character and a sense of justice.

But I would like to elaborate on the musical component of Fair Game. And don't think it's not here, or very little. It's there, and it's just awful. The worst soundtrack I've ever heard, honestly. I can't even call it music, a chaotic set of annoying sounds, my five-year-old daughter on a toy piano, and it'll come out with something more intelligible. I'm exaggerating, but still. So, in addition to poor quality, the compositions do not correspond to what is happening on the screen. In the tense moments where the atmosphere needs to be heated, a chaotic heroic march sounds for some reason. It would have been better to put in the title theme from The Benny Hill Show, at least ridiculous. Because of all this, you don’t take the serious action as a thriller, but rather as “Operation Y” and other adventures of Shurik. That's what a slob means in just one aspect, and not the most weighty aspect as it seemed. The composer pretty spoiled a generally good and unbanal film.
The confrontation between the heroine and poachers turned out to be rich, not as cruel and sadistic as most similar modern paintings. From minor pranks to increasingly serious consequences. There will be a spectacular scene with the kangaroot mentioned above, just like on the poster. But the sense of imminent denouement did not come. The constant running of the heroine and endless multiple clashes with villains, already set up for the ending in the spirit of “Operation Y”. Cowards, Stupids, Experienced, and our heroine drives them by car. And the music would be just fine. But I'm glad that didn't happen. Everything ended as befits the genre, swiftly and uncompromisingly. And as soon as the credits went, a great song played! Yeah, in time, you can't tell. But after a half-hour musical farce, this composition is a delight for the ears.

“Fair Game” is a rare, almost unknown Australian picture originating from the distant 80s, with a bright, promising poster, which in principle still looks pretty good. From the graph genres - horror boldly cross out, they are not here. And if you do not want to spoil the impression of what you see, I recommend at least to mute the sound, so that the musical attempts of the composer do not ruin your entire viewing.
6 out of 10