lizardjims Mystery Road'' is a western-like crime film, written and directed by the talented Ivan Sven. The movie is set in a small Australian town where everybody knows everybody and a gruesome killing of a black teenage girl takes place. The protagonist (Aaron Pedersen) is a young tough-but-fair police officer, divorced and the father of a young girl, who strives to solve the case having often to overcome the nonchalance of his colleagues and superior and the hostile behavior from witnesses and suspects. The plot moves slowly forward, enhancing the feeling of suspense and the breathtaking cinematography is bound to dazzle any viewer. ''Mystery Road'' is a very entertaining police procedural with top-level acting both by Pedersen and Hugo Weaving (in a supporting role) and a memorable, very well crafted, final shoot-out scene. If you are looking for the generic Hollywood crime film you will be disappointed as ''Mystery Road'' will attract the audiences who appreciate different qualities in a movie.

Prismark10 Mystery Road can best be described as an Aboriginal noir western. Aaron Pedersen is Detective Jay Swan. A determined indigenous cop who never seems to give up despite the obstacles in his way which includes threats and racism.The detective wears a white cowboy hat but seems to use very little of his grey cells in the head as he investigates the murder of a young Aboriginal prostitute in the outback.This is a very slow burn thriller with some unresolved side plots and conspiracies. I really found this film hard work because it was so tedious. Only the shoot out at the end perked things up but it really is a boring film with little reward value.

samkan I enjoyed this film as much as most of the other COMMENTERS herein. And like many of my fellow critics, I take issue with some of MYSTERY ROAD's untied plot issues. Maybe greater issue as I was disappointed at the movie's end. ADVISORY: Read no further if you're yet to watch as MYSTERY ROAD is indeed intriguing. This film is moody and interesting enough that it overcomes it's faults. But, and I'll be brutally specific: The attempt at depicting racial strife, injustice, etc., is ham-handed enough to approach gratuitousness. The "wild dog" subplot is by far the best storyline yet fades away. I''m guessing the druggies raised the mutts to protect their trade and killed the girls for canine feed. Finally -and almost irritating- is Johnno helping our hero by picking off bad guys and, if so, why? MYSTERY ROAD deserves far more than it's OK Corral ending. Whew, I'll sure take a lot of heat for this review!

teslavate -- I will say right from the out set that if you need a fast pace story running very quickly and smoothly from front to back this is likely not to be a movie you will enjoy. It starts out very slowly and seems to leave an awful lot to the viewer's mind to fill in. -- The movie starts out like it's going to be about racial bigotry, a native detective in a 99% white power structure working as a newly promoted detective returning home from a long absence at training and school. While he has been gone things have changed in the relatively small desert town, cocaine and methamphetamines have moved into the very rural area, as well as the labs that create it and the criminals who will do anything to anyone to protect it and the twisted pass times of the people in that trade. -- Even though it is slow moving it is very realistic in the form of a police investigation. In the USA we are used to directors spoon feeding us everything and running a very chronological story, but in real life investigative police work is often very slow and ponderous. I think maybe that is what this director was trying to express in his movie, but he comes very close to making the movie untenable for the average viewer in the USA. Maybe in Australia they are into this kind of movie. At any rate the movie IS very realistic in how a police investigation slowly progresses toward its goal. -- As you move along you start to realize that the murder in the start of the movie maybe part of it but the story is more about the depraved minds of these criminals and how the drug trade moves in and infects all levels of society and brings in levels of depravity never scene before by most citizens. Not only is there a drug trade going on but also a sick trade in underage kids and a serial killer that likes to use dogs and knives on his young female victims. -- And if you like true realism you will find the big shootout very satisfying. Having worked as a criminal investigator for +20 years and having been involved in a number of shooting I found the shoot out to be very realistic, to the point of running my adrenaline right up as I tried to shout advice. Now some will say the rifle shooting drug cop is unrealistic in that he simply sits in the open and has a long range sniper shoot out with a determined sniper, however you have to understand, and catch the clues in the movie, that this drug cop is either VERY deep under cover or on the take. In any case he is using drugs and that explains why he would sit in the open and duke it out with big bore rifles. -- However, after a very satisfying shoot out with the lowest form of criminals the movie does this weird thing I have seen in a lot of early movie making. It leaves you hanging and thinking, "What the..." because the director assumes that you see the same things he envisions but apparently doesn't bother to ask anyone else about to see if they agree. Or, the director is trying to leave a dramatic twist at the end that doesn't really do that well. -- Also, the ramification and results of this epic gun battle are left to us to try and fathom. All we see is the detective look at the bad guys faces and then he drives away from a scene in which, by my count, approximately 7 bad guys are killed by police gunfire, 1 officer is dead and 1 officer is wounded. And the survivor just drives away. Of course, or at least I hope that the director is just leaving the after effects to our imagination. If not then I really was lost and misunderstood everything. -- If you have watched the movie closely you may catch enough to sort of understand what he's aiming for in the last scene but it is not obvious. I had to watch the movie twice to catch some of the little details that didn't seem pertinent to movie the first time around. Then I finally understood that the detective is going home to his estranged ex-wife and teen daughter. -- So basically the movie starts out with a crime scene and slowly rolls toward the inevitable confrontation between good and bad. The whole movie appears to be pointed towards that goal, the confrontation, the shoot out at the OK corral so to speak. However after the great confrontation, after watching and waiting for this inevitable clash and watching it happen, the director turns the movie about and tries to make a dramatic family ending, but I don't think he laid a sufficient foundation for this to work well. There only a couple scenes about the family aspect and they weren't very detailed. -- It possibly sounds like I am trying to tear this movie apart but I really am not. As a cop who was disabled in such a confrontation as this movie I found it very interesting and I enjoyed trying to better understand it through the social differences. The actors are true professionals and the movie appears to have been made by professionals also. I would recommend it to anyone who likes who dunnits or cop movies. But it's not a family movie and it would be better going into it with open eyes..