Movie review: Dry murder story in the Australian countryside in The dry

Australia's bonnaland.

The perpetual drought consumes fields, fields and people. Gives rise to sudden flaming fires that destroy everything in its path: Undoubtedly an exciting fund with a current climate crisis in its back pocket. Could it be in any case. But no real drama is extracted from the premise that is still considered so essential for the film that it is allowed to believe in the title. Probably there is initial talk about the drought, and here and there we notice that there is a shortage of water but otherwise… nope.

But the deal out there on the crisp steppe then, where the killer threatens to drop a lighter so that the whole village (!) Will burn up? Njä… Krystat and - it turns out - untrue.

The clichés,

on the other hand, are in line to be ticked off. A small town with big secrets, a returnee who is forced to face old sins, homophobic and restricted villagers who hate themselves in life, an old crime that turns out to have a bearing even today, and so on.

Still, this adaptation of a best-selling book by Jane Harper is not a disaster, certainly not, it's just too banal and not suggestive to engage; in order to care especially about what is happening there on the screen.

interpreter Eric Bana - who plays the lead role of the federal police coming home from Sydney to take care of a local murder - has a kind of obvious presence, but the role is also so playful and odynamic that you finally grope for something, anything, to invest some emotion in. But maybe that weird immigrant type, then? He who seems to have contracted from an episode of Flight of the Concords ... but everything speaks for itself because he is the killer so… nope.

The Who-dunnit genre always appeals to a crossword fan as a signer, and it's an honor to stay until everything is resolved, but The dry is unfortunately as easy as a Friday cruise.  

Thus a perfectly okay detective story from a village in the shadow of the radio - for those who have never seen one before and want to start with something simple. The rest of us can rather see about much more advanced products of the same kind, such as Mare of Easttown, Sharp objects, Top of the lake and all the others.