Review of The Last Wave

In Australia, four Aborigine men stand accused of causing the death of, or perhaps murdering, one of their own; a white taxation lawyer becomes involved, but he can't seem to break through to the secretive defendants--nor can he shake the feeling that something is terribly amiss in his own life, which is juxtaposed by the freaky-wet weather. Would-be apocalyptic mishmash from director and co-writer Peter Weir begins with a marvelously spooky sequence in the schoolyard (where hailstones fall from a cloudless sky), yet the eerie beauty of that opening is allowed to dribble away in a melodramatic study of class and race guilt--the wealthy and powerful whites versus the poor black Aboriginals--underscored with supernatural flourishes. Weir wants to be profound and serious, so there's nothing intrinsically mysterious or exciting about the lawyer's prophetic dreams, nor his relationships with the Aborigine tribe or his wife and daughters. A potentially fascinating situation is kept ominously mundane, while lead actor Richard Chamberlain drifts through in an anxious fog. *1/2 from ****