This Australian Outback tale of the standoff between a brave, beautiful woman and a trio of bullying hunters is notable for two things.
1. How many times people DON'T get killed. 2. The way its conflict is grounded in normal human behavior gone awry, instead of being spawned by abnormal evil.
Jessica (Cassandra Delany) runs a ramshackle animal sanctuary in the Australian wilds. Her husband is away and the local cop refuses to help as she's harassed by three men hired by local farmers to shoot kangaroos. In their tricked-out jeep, complete with shooting perch and a handlebar mustache front bumper, the handsome Sony (Peter Ford), frantic Ringo (David Sandford) and chubby Sparks (Garry Who) begin bothering Jessica as an act of boorish bravado. The more Jessica stands up to their taunts and manhandling, however, the more aggressive and violent the hunters become until what began as almost a form of roughhouse flirting turns into a life-or-death struggle for dominance.
Fair Game is an enjoyable little thriller, for its effective execution, wonderful Down Under scenery and for its different spin on the classic female revenge story. The whole "woman being set upon by men until she fights back" is one of the foundations of the American exploitation film. The U.S. version is almost always about the victim turning the tables on her victimizers. These Aussie filmmakers take that concept in a refreshingly interesting direction. Jessica is never just hapless prey and the hunters aren't psycho killers. Jessica is a frontier woman defending her home and her dignity. The hunters are never monsters. They're unthinking, adrenaline-seeking jackasses who simply don't care how their behavior bothers or even endangers others. It's only when Jessica refuses to back down and accept their crude, schoolboy torments that their behavior lethally escalates.
Redefining this conflict as a battle of wills makes for a much more entertaining film. The fact that at certain points in the movie, Jessica is the one who actually elevates her fight with the hunters to a new level of intensity gives depth to an otherwise basic plot. Making the woman a proactive participant in her clash with these men enlivens all of the characters and engages the viewer on a different level. When the hunters repeatedly have Jessica at their mercy and decide not to harm her, it makes them more than just avatars of our brutal voyeurism.
The dialog here is nothing to write home about and there are a few moments where something happens that doesn't seem to be possible. That's more than compensated for by the, at times, startling nudity of Cassandra Delaney.
Fair Game is a thriller that's more intellectually intriguing than emotionally gripping, but it's still worth watching.
1. How many times people DON'T get killed. 2. The way its conflict is grounded in normal human behavior gone awry, instead of being spawned by abnormal evil.
Jessica (Cassandra Delany) runs a ramshackle animal sanctuary in the Australian wilds. Her husband is away and the local cop refuses to help as she's harassed by three men hired by local farmers to shoot kangaroos. In their tricked-out jeep, complete with shooting perch and a handlebar mustache front bumper, the handsome Sony (Peter Ford), frantic Ringo (David Sandford) and chubby Sparks (Garry Who) begin bothering Jessica as an act of boorish bravado. The more Jessica stands up to their taunts and manhandling, however, the more aggressive and violent the hunters become until what began as almost a form of roughhouse flirting turns into a life-or-death struggle for dominance.
Fair Game is an enjoyable little thriller, for its effective execution, wonderful Down Under scenery and for its different spin on the classic female revenge story. The whole "woman being set upon by men until she fights back" is one of the foundations of the American exploitation film. The U.S. version is almost always about the victim turning the tables on her victimizers. These Aussie filmmakers take that concept in a refreshingly interesting direction. Jessica is never just hapless prey and the hunters aren't psycho killers. Jessica is a frontier woman defending her home and her dignity. The hunters are never monsters. They're unthinking, adrenaline-seeking jackasses who simply don't care how their behavior bothers or even endangers others. It's only when Jessica refuses to back down and accept their crude, schoolboy torments that their behavior lethally escalates.
Redefining this conflict as a battle of wills makes for a much more entertaining film. The fact that at certain points in the movie, Jessica is the one who actually elevates her fight with the hunters to a new level of intensity gives depth to an otherwise basic plot. Making the woman a proactive participant in her clash with these men enlivens all of the characters and engages the viewer on a different level. When the hunters repeatedly have Jessica at their mercy and decide not to harm her, it makes them more than just avatars of our brutal voyeurism.
The dialog here is nothing to write home about and there are a few moments where something happens that doesn't seem to be possible. That's more than compensated for by the, at times, startling nudity of Cassandra Delaney.
Fair Game is a thriller that's more intellectually intriguing than emotionally gripping, but it's still worth watching.