Beast. Of. War!

I saw this at an 11.30pm screening with the director and some of the cast present and there was a general sense of delight in the audience that we were up late and about to watch something so sensationally dramatic. It felt a bit like we were naughty children out after dark.

Director Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood) told us at the start that he had someone offer him access to a giant water tank if he could come up with a film about something in a boat or at sea. He took the opportunity to take a real life story, that of Australian soldiers marooned in the the Timor Sea after their boat was bombed by the Japanese, drifting for days and slowly being picked off by sharks.

This is definitely the jumping off point, and we have some establishing scenes of our Aussie diggers being shown the ropes in some tropical environment (that looks a bit like someone’s backyard inn Queensland). We get to know the characters in quite broad strokes, there is Leo (Mark Coles Smith) who is Indigenous and a good bloke. There is a Will (Joel Nankervis) who is young and innocent. There is Des (Sam Delich) who is a bully and a racist. And there are a couple of token female nurses who represent a bit of feminine sexy time. The setting and outfits feel a bit low budget but we know what they are trying to achieve and can forgive them for the perfunctory locations and costuming. 

AS they go through their training, their sergeant impresses on them the need to help their mates above all else and we know that this, and the friendships and conflicts, are going to come to play out on the sea.

When the calamity has happened and they are adrift, we know what to expect – a bit of Jaws and The Shallows and Open Water. There is a great white shark that is stalking them like a sentient being, a female which is made a point of and I’m not sure how that pans out in the subtext.

It’s not so much believable as an enjoyable and sometimes gory roller coaster ride. The characters play out as we would expect, there is some reference being Indigenous, and Roache-Turner makes spectacular use of the water tank and the big sky vistas.

I don’t think it necessarily brings anything new to the genre, but is a solid and fun couple of hours to spend with a choc top and a glass of wine.