Fair Game (1986).

1. (The Stage)

A young woman named Jessica runs a wildlife sanctuary in the middle of the Australian outback. One day, she gets mixed up with some insane bogan kangaroo hunters that drive a tricked-out, Mad Max inspired pickup truck who decide that Jessica is going to be their next prey. Jessica, however, has other ideas…

2. (The Good)

This film was directed by Mario Andreacchio, who up to this point, was primarily a documentarian. His understanding behind the lens definitely shines here. The best part about this film is the camerawork. Impressive crane shots, shots that float and move gracefully across the landscape when other, lesser directors would have had a tight static shot…it all looks great. The cinematography in this film takes advantage of the Australian scenery, the entire film is fucking beautiful (including the lead actress, Cassandra Delaney). I was a bit surprised to see that the cinematographer (Andrew Lesnie) went on to a long career in cinematography, filming the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit series with Peter Jackson.

Although there aren’t a lot of stunts, the stunts that are here are practical and look great. Unfortunately, the action as a whole is very limited.

3. (The Bad)

The script is flat out terrible. The main character makes frustratingly poor decisions and there were several moments where I couldn’t help but think, “Yep, she deserves to die.” Take one scene, for example, where she sneaks up on the men while they sleep at their makeshift camp. Their guns and vehicles are out in the open. She has a few tactical options at this point - take the guns and kill them (or just take the guns), disable the cars, etc. Instead, Jessica decides to weld some of their guns together and then she leaves. She also just keeps going back to the same wildlife sanctuary instead of going elsewhere altogether. Had she disabled one of the hunters’ vehicles and taken the other, the film would be over. She never would have had to deal with their shit again.

The villains are also very underwritten - they’re simply stock bad guys doing bad things because they’re bad. No explanation, no back story, no character development…just three bored kangaroo hunters.

I liked the “Home Alone” style set pieces near the end, but it felt rushed and the deaths were nowhere near as exciting as they should have been with the build up that the film presented.

4. (The Ugly)

The music. God, the music. This film would have been a bit better had they swapped the kiddie-like action film score for something more appropriate. It took me right out of every scene because it just felt so stupid.

5. (The End)

In terms of authentic Australian ozploitation, this one sits in the middle of the pack. The visuals are fucking awesome, but the story just sucks so much that it felt wasted. It doesn’t have enough gore or nudity (save for one scene in which Jessica is tied to the front of the truck topless) to satiate fans of true exploitation cinema and the main character, although striking, is so stupid that you can’t help but root for her to go down in flames along with the bogans.