Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Guy RED HILL is yet another attempt to make an Australian Western movie. This time it's a classic B-Oater plot as the new cop moves to a small town which is full of rednecks. When an Aboriginal criminal and master tracker escapes and comes back for vengeance on the town, the hunt begins. That would have been a good film and the early part with its great landscapes and clean compositions suggests it will be. Sadly political correctness rears its ugly head and it becomes obvious (spoilers) that the Aboriginal is the real victim, who was framed by the racist whites in town (but the film-makers weren't brave enough to make him the hero). Even more idiotically, the secret the hero is hiding is that he was shot on duty because...he refused to shoot a kid with a gun, who then shot him. Rather than making his restraint heroic, his explanation actually makes him come across as idiotic. The tracking skills never actually go anywhere and the film is reduced to idiotic action scenes in which none of the villains can hit the Aborigine even when he's in the open only a few metres away.

Phil Hubbs You could be forgiven for thinking this is a Clint Eastwood style period set western and that's exactly what I thought it was upon seeing the poster design and film title, in fact its set in the present day and is more of a homage to westerns. Being set in the arid merciless Aussie outback of course does make it more of cowboy than cop thriller for sure.The film is pretty unoriginal lets be honest about it, the layout and events are nothing new and do smell strongly of certain saddle bound Eastwood adventures but again..lets be honest here, its a damn good Aussie version of certain saddle bound Eastwood adventures. Beating around no bushes this is a strong violent retribution/revenge thriller that almost kinda boarders on 'The Terminator' in some building and street sequences with its light-less settings, strong shadows and mute anti hero killer.From the start you know something is amiss with the local police force and their gruff leader 'Old Bill', you can kinda tell what will happen really but it doesn't detract from the fun of the film one bit. The cast are unknown to me but pretty big in Oz. Bisley as 'Old Bill' is perfect and really comes across well as the hardened no nonsense chief whilst Lewis is great as the mute aboriginal gunman who at first is intimidating, almost robotic like in his swift killings, but you know all is not as it seems.The lead Kwanten does sort of over act towards the finale as he goes from being a regular guy to a strong stern voiced gunman brewing over with clichés but you feel the tenseness of the finale and you find yourself glued to the screen. Nothing really new to the table here but the whole film looks good and is well acted with a trusted source in the nasty revenge genre to always get the juices flowing, maybe some more nastiness to really bring home the need for revenge was needed though.Highly recommended and much better fair than the usual over hyped glossy Hollywood guff that was 'No Country for Old Men', this is gritty and more down to earth with realistic characters. The Oz factor of course helps this hugely. Still not so sure what the panther subplot was all about though, why was it needed? oh well.7/10

cmoyton It would appear that most Australian movies given a theatrical or home cinema release in the United Kingdom automatically whet the appetites of critics and audiences alike. Why so? All this particular movie has going for it is the scenery. But its already there. All you have to do is point and click. As did the cops in the movie, with their rifles and pistols that is. What a useless bunch they were, even with the escaped convict killer in their sites, with his back turned they still couldn't hit him. He was an Aboriginal superman. Red Hill is just a bog standard revenge drama fused with that awful contemporary genre "modern day western".After dark the town became Australias Copland with all the other residents hiding somewhere. I suppose they had been warned by the police chief about the monster storm coming that turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. Pity because there then could have been some tumbleweeds action to build upon that "modern day western" feel.The acting is lousy from all concerned and the story is so humdrum and routine. A thoroughly disengaging experience. There are countless other more worthy Australian movies out there.

Daniel Hollis The only western I've watched this year being the Coen's version of True Grit, Red Hill has a lot to live up to. Ryan Kwanten plays Shane Cooper, a young police officer who has just moved to the isolated town of Red Hill. His first day goes off course though as a local prison has a breakout and convicted criminal, Jimmy Conway (Played by Tommy Lewis) is on the loose and heading for Red Hill. This simple story has a lot going for it accompanied with an excellent shot choice, reminiscent of the Coen's 'No Country For Old Men', in fact, the whole film felt like a homage to western's in general and that's the main flaw of the film. It never has it's own voice; it feels like bits picked from various other and more rounded films so doesn't give it's own flavor.It can be commended however on it's playful way of mixing horror into the mix. There were countless scenes where the tension was dialed up to 11 making it an edge of the seat experience, not relying on quiet environments followed by loud bangs to get inside the audience's head. It was a very atmospheric piece and Tommy Lewis's representation of Jimmy Conway added to that having a terrifying yet, electrifying screen presence truly invoking a sense of dread into you whenever he was on screen.While far from being perfect Red Hill is a perfectly fine nuts and bolts westerns with enough plot twists and turns to keep you interested. You just can't help but get a strong sense of déjà vu within the viewing and reminds you of other and far better westerns which have truly earned their rights of classics. Red Hill isn't a classic, but it's a damn good time.