‘The Dry’ – Review
Eric Bana has been absent from the big screen for some time, but in The Dry, which is adapted from the best selling book by Jane Harper, Bana makes a solid return to the big screen. And here he delivers am impeccable performance in a solid detective story that reels audiences in with its twisting and tense narrative.
Aaron Falk returns to his drought-stricken hometown to attend a tragic funeral. But his return opens a decades-old wound – the unsolved death of a teenage girl.
Director Robert Connolly brings to life the intensity of the best selling Australian farmland detective story The Dry, which adapts the heroic Federal Police detective Aaron Falk character to the big screen and brings to life the intense story that has gripped readers the world over. The Dry is an intense story of two converging narratives in the farming town of Kiewarra. One is a horrible murder-suicide set in the present, the other a mysterious death in Aaron’s path that are somehow linked and these two stories deliver plenty of nailbiting suspense moments. Connolly directs The Dry as a thinking man’s type of detective story, as layer by layer this small town begins to shed its dark secret and Aaron narrows down the perpetrators of both the present and past crimes.
In terms of actors, Eric Bana is a perfomer who always delivers a solid performance and keeps the audiences hooked with every project he takes on. His role as Aaron Falk is no different, and he presents a portrait of a complicated man, who seemingly at first doesn’t want to get involved, but whose nature can’t stop him. Bana’s performance is very much in keeping with the character’s nature as a detective, and there’s an analytical intelligence to his movements throughout the story. Falk’s a guy who looks over the whole picture and as his focus narrows things come into view and Bana’s performance is sure to have audiences gripped the whole way through.
Throughout The Dry, there’s a deep foreboding tension that only the best thrillers can build up in their audiences. And there’s plenty in this to keep you on edge as Bana’s Falk hunts for a killer. The film’s drought-ridden setting only exasperates this further, and the sense of dryness and inhospitality of the Kiewarra environment is like kindling just waiting for a lit match. And with every move of Falk’s hunt for the truth, you’re readying yourself for the flames. The exploration of past traumas, buried secrets and conflicting perspectives adds to the intensity of this thriller and audiences won’t see the conclusion coming which hits like a sledgehammer and has big relevance for the character of Falk.
The Dry makes for a gripping thriller, and audiences looking for some intense detective thrills will want to check this one out.
image: Roadshow Films
