lost-in-limbo Emily Barclay… wow. What an excellently untouchable and stormy performance of teasing manipulation, in what drives and sets the kinetically sensationalized story of crime, drugs, sex, revenge and murder in motion. This sexily gusty little Australian made feature uses an old formula, but the pictorial direction pumps it up with vigorously hard-hitting energy and flashy techniques smothered by a rollicking rock soundtrack featuring homegrown talent. Fashionably mechanical handling throughout, but effectively unapologetic nonetheless. However director Paul Goldman does a good job etching in an authentic atmosphere of the western suburbs. The story follows that of Katrina Skinner… a rebellious 19 year old mum that's into crime, sex, cars and likes to be the 'showpiece' of the town. When her brother is put away for murder, she sets up a plan to hopefully bail him out. However her father (movingly tailored performance by Robert Morgan) is worried, especially about her baby daughter as she goes about leaving others to look after the child (namely her staunch boyfriend played Michael Dorman), as she searches for a recklessly good time. Everyone wants to see her clean up, but she won't have anything to with it and begins to turn on those who she believes are in the way. The plot is done in a fragmented style where in between the story; it would cut to a documentary crew filming people who were somewhat involved with Katrina asking questions about her. It's character-based with its cutting script with it being very vague on motivation, but lingering within is an intense mean-streak and suitably dark and racy comedic elements. Spitefully quirky, but compelling largely due to the unswervingly strong performances.

Eric Rose Apparently this film is nominated for several AFI awards including Best Actress for Emily Barclay. I can understand why - her performance is mesmerising and impressive given her public comments about the problems getting in character. The rest of the cast is very solid as well, and it was good to see Steve Bastoni on screen again, as he haven't been in much lately.From the start, with a cheesy special effect and the killer soundtrack, you have to either accept the proposition put to you, or walk out there and then. I found the loudness of the music almost physical - it was as much a character as Katrina. Mick Harvey has done some wonderful film-score work before, on Australian Rules and Chopper, not to mention his time with Nick Cave and this one adds to his reputation.Thinking of films in this genre, that I would compare Suburban Mayhem to, I'd have to go with Natural Born Killers as the top of the list. I don't think that this is quite in the same league as a work by Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino, but it's still very well done.

Paul Martin In some respects, this was quite an ambitious film – it's dark, smart, and edgy – a little bit in the vein of Brick (not as polished but a whole lot better). The music and energy are all there, but there seems to be a few flat spots. It may have benefited from some further editing to keep the momentum up, even though it's already just under 90 minutes in length. It seems like the writer and director had some good ideas, that weren't fully realised.I think many cinema-goers will find this entertaining, and I certainly recommend it over the bulk of Hollywood releases (not that that's saying much), if that's your taste. For me it seemed laboured and contrived. The performances by the actors were generally (but not universally) OK. Emily Barclay's performance was good, but her character failed to engage – somewhat like Kath and Kim on speed. It's not that her character was nasty (David Wenham's monumental performance in The Boys was extremely nasty), but more that it seemed manufactured. Her brattishness becomes grating after a while.The mid-film interviews reminded me of 2:37. They were better done in this film, but still detract somewhat from the continuity of the film.The script seemed a bit clunky and self-conscious and just didn't quite work for me. I think the director depended too much on the sound-track and style over substance. A strength of the film is that it took some risks, but they weren't fully realised.

markspencer_17 Boring Boring Boring.Sometimes I go into a film not wanting to be there or with negative pre-conceptions only to be blown away with it's originality and entertainment values. This was not one of these films.In an age of free to air TV programming mainly consisting of shows depicting death, killing and women using their sexuality to put men down, Suburban Mayhem has both for $15.During the Q&A after film writer (Alice Bell) could not answer the question asking her whether she liked her main character or not. Considering the films content I wonder what did her father did to her ?I cannot believe that the writer and the director would think that this was an interesting time for a movie like this. I cannot see anything new about it. If you really want to see killing just turn on the TV, people are doing it for real !!!!!The worst thing about it ? Its not entertaining !!!!!Save your hard earned money.