Mercy Road film review: this thriller is a tad too mysterious

Tom drives furiously away from a house in which a crime has occurred. He has blood on his hands – something dire has obviously happened, but the viewer is kept in the dark.

Luke Bracey in Mercy Road

Mercy Road (MA15+)
In cinemas from Thursday
★★★

Mercy Road is an Australian thriller that is heavily under the influence of the Tom Hardy film Locke (2013).

Both films involve a man with a heap of problems driving a vehicle at night for a lengthy distance while constantly talking on his mobile phone. The British film was entirely set inside the vehicle, but Mercy Road contains a couple of scenes that take place outside the ute belonging to the hapless protagonist.

Luke Bracey, who is on-screen throughout, gives a powerfully intense performance as a man in a desperate situation, but the drama is somewhat undermined by the decision of director John Curran, and his writers Jesse Heffring and Christopher Lee Pelletier, to withhold a bit too much information from the viewer.

The film commences with a bang as Tom (Bracey) drives furiously away from a house in which a crime has apparently occurred. He has blood on his hands – something dire has obviously happened, but the viewer is kept in the dark.

Though it might have seemed like a good idea to start the film on a high like this, it doesn’t work out that way. On his phone, Tom urges his 15-year-old daughter, Ruby (Martha Kate Morgan), not to go home – but why, and, come to that, where is Ruby? Terri (Alex Malone), Tom’s ex-wife, doesn’t know but thinks Tom knows, and the police are after Tom, presumably because they think he has his daughter with him.

There’s talk of pedophilia involving Ruby’s stepfather, Shane Bader, and an avuncular voice (Toby Jones) belonging to an unnamed caller begins to give Tom instructions as to where to drive. It’s all very tense but also more than a bit confusing and, for this viewer at least, a satisfactory explanation to it all remained elusive to the very end.

Poor Tom is not only desperate to find his daughter, but also terrified by the smooth orders given by the mysterious “associate” – as the voice is named in the credits.

This mystery man appears to be able to see and hear everything going on inside Tom’s vehicle. Tom, meanwhile, is anxious to elude the pursuing police, but he is also harassed by what looks like a huntsman spider that has invaded his vehicle and sets about crawling all over him. Ugh! It’s not clear if someone has planted the creature in his ute or whether its presence is just more bad luck for Tom.

A phone call from Dario (Ezekiel Sciacca), who is apparently Ruby’s boyfriend, only adds to the confusion, while regular calls from a woman representing Emergency Services provide few insights into what’s really going on.

Director Curran, a New Yorker, has had a long association with Australia having made some fine films here (Praise, 1998; Tracks, 2013). He also made the excellent Chappaquiddick (2017) in his native America. Mercy Road is intriguing and suspenseful as far as it goes, but I wanted more background, more information than Curran and his team were willing to divulge.

Technically, the film is fine – it was shot on a Melbourne soundstage but thanks to cinematographer Ross Giardina, it’s visually impressive. Bracey gives his all as the beleaguered Tom. Toby Jones is heard but not seen.

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The Origin of Evil (L’origine du mal) (MA15+)
In cinemas
★★★½

The Origin of Evil, a very well-crafted French-Canadian thriller from writer-director Sebastien Marnier, is one of those films that keeps the viewer guessing just about from start to finish.

The opening scenes introduce Stephane (the excellent Laure Calamy, who made an impression in the Netflix series Call My Agent), who has just been released from prison.

She finds work in a fish packing factory, but she misses her girlfriend back in prison.

When her landlady throws her out of her modest apartment, Stephane becomes determined to track down her wealthy father, Serge Dumontel (Jacques Weber), who never married her mother and who she hasn’t seen in many years.

Serge owns restaurants in Porquerolles, an island off the Riviera coast, and he is delighted to be reunited with his illegitimate daughter after so many years.

He invites Stephane home to meet his family. In a huge house cluttered by useless bric-a-brac, the ex-convict meets her father’s suspicious wife Louise (Dominique Blanc), his bitter daughter George (Doria Tillier) and 16-year-old stepdaughter Jeanne (Celeste Brunquell).

There’s also a rather sinister maid (Veronique Ruggia Saura), who appears to know a great deal more than she should.

As Stephane and Serge draw closer together, the other members of the family, not trusting this outsider, become increasingly concerned that their inheritance might be in jeopardy.

The Origin of Evil is a film in which none of the characters is entirely trustworthy, and there are several unexpected twists before the deliciously satisfying conclusion. Calamy is excellent in the leading role, while Weber is also impressive as the ageing tyrant.

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Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party (MA15+)
In cinemas
★★½

With Wim Wenders as one of the producers, Ian White’s feature documentary Made in Heaven: The Birthday Party explores the genesis of Nick Cave’s music and his first band, The Birthday Party, which was formed when he was still at school. The band made an immediate impact for its non-conformism, and Cave and his fellow musos soon headed for London, where they lived in ­poverty – one even suffered from malnutrition – and where their top earning for a gig was £80. The band dissolved in 1983. Nick Cave fans will doubtless relish this exploration of the famous musician’s formative years, but visually the film, composed mostly of badly filmed home videos, is an endurance test for the uninitiated.