Review - Last Cab to Darwin

So close to being great.  Hugely ambitious with its heart in exactly the right place, but there were moments were it did stumble. Michael Caton as the emotionally immature Rex and Ningali Lawford as Polly (his long suffering neighbour) are high points with great performances (as you would expect) but Jacqui Weaver (Dr Farmer) was just plain odd. Mark Coles Smith was for most of the film at his usual excellent level but there were moments where he would over react making him feel uneven. Maybe this was down to editing of the scenes, but characters would jump between normal and going off the deep end emotionally without any provocation.

But don’t let that detract from what is an important story. In fact there are several important themes going on within the film: euthanasia, race relations, ethics. My hat is off to Mr Simms in tackling such an ambitious project, and delivering a pretty good end product. It’s better to have tried something great and marginally fall short, rather than deliver another average film that will be instantly forgotten. You won’t forget Last Cab to Darwin.