Snowtown

The acting is remarkable. The rest of the very slowly paced film isn't.

An alright film about a gruesome subject. It tells a true story, but beyond that leaves you wondering "what was the point of that?"

Australian cinema gets even more tar-black with this depressing true story. However, I think there's too much spent on mood and not enough on story; there are shots and entire scenes that feel so tangential while there's so much of the story that's missing, it feels like it's doing injustice. Still, a real toughie of a film and it'll feel rewarding in a shadowy sort of way if you can make it to the end. There's no town like Snowtown.

good acting but not an enjoyable film at all

Generally well-done, but the effort expended to effectively portray Bunting clearly outweighs that of the other characters. Jamie, in particular, has little dialogue, as though the filmmakers were never quite able to resolve the dilemmas involved in representing his situation. Unrelentingly grim but the film is in fact toned down when compared to the real crimes, and needed to delve even deeper into the heart of darkness of the perpetrators and the milieu to convey insights and affect audiences.

The mumblecore narration and medley of dreary scenes of everyday life will bore you to tears and the slow pace will sap any energy you have left. This film is ugly, crude and just generally horrible to watch, taken on its own it's repulsive and very much the banality of evil, knowing it's a true story it's just depressing and some people will love if for that, but for me, not a fun watch at all.

Striking portrait of rural poverty as a breeding ground for evil, where a generalized exchange of predations and grievances is ignored by the system. That is, until a few, seeking whatever help they can find, empower men with a horrible clarity of vision, who regard any pretense of weakness as an affront to a morality embedded in some masculine, Darwinist code, and, having gained their complicity, begin incorporating their enablers into their work, as both conspirators and victims.

A sordid tale well told by a talented filmmaker. Kind of wish I'd never seen it though - there's not much here to lift your view of humanity.

Reading about the Snowtown murders on wikipedia after watching the film, I'm thinking the subject could have made for a fascinating movie in better hands. Probably both the script and the editing are to blame for the lameness of this one. Sometimes it grinds to a halt and just blankly stares. Other times it seems to leapfrog over essential exposition or plot points and leaves your mind scrambling to figure out what's going on. Only Jamie's character is dynamic, and not in any interesting way.

Can't fault the experience based on the performances, because they were spectacular. The two leads are mesmerizing in their take on complete psychopaths. Still, you have to want to sit through abhorrently grim 2 hours and do it with hand partially over your face. I'm on for dark films, but this was grim.

Absolutely miserable movie, exactly the way it should be. Henshall is mesmerizing as John Bunting and the way Jamie gets sucked into Bunting's terrible viewpoints is somewhat subtle believable. While the film is good in that respect (showing how someone could follow Bunting and participate) the actual explanations as to who was who and the relationships between them was poor and hard to follow. Maybe I didn't pay attention enough or something but it drags the film down somewhat.

Ciezki w odbiorze, ale rewelacyjny. Swietnie zagrane.

Never watching THIS again.

Disgusting, yet beautifully shot. Hard to take your eyes away. Definitely, one to watch for anyone who can appreciate a well crafted yet dark film.

So slow it's almost unwatchable. This is unforgivable in a serial killer movie.

what a soundtrack. what performances from non-actors!! this tore my heart out..

Really good for a first feature, though the oppressively ultra-grim tone (and Pittaway's miserable face, which varies between "about to cry" and "crying" for most of the second half) started to wear me down after a while, and in the third act was verging on self-parody. Par for the course with Australian dramas though, and it's never bad. But if Kurzel can learn to vary his tone while also telling a compelling story he could be one of the greats.

Suffocating, depressing and terrifying. A relentless film which follows the wake of destruction, both physical and psychological, left by a serial killer in a small town in southern Australia. A must-see!

I suppose I could commend it for being effectively brutal, but that doesn’t mean I liked it. Just as I didn’t like Hostel. It’s very slow, longer than it needed to be, and most of the people portrayed are so unlikable. The acting can’t redeem the experience of seeing a film this slow and miserable. I feel like it’s better to simply read about, since the majority of its two hour run time is slow burn filler for its brief violence. A documentary would almost certainly be better.

Brutally brilliant....

A brutal, hard-to-watch movie from first timer Kurzel about mild-mannered and evil-incarnate John Bunting, Australia's most notorious serial killer. Not cathartic, not didactic, featuring a victim-turned-murderer who is frustratingly passive, this film leaves you feeling dead and blank inside. And perhaps that's the point.

Just totally low-key horrifying here, yeah. Much left to the imagination, feels very raw and powerful throughout. A very uncomfortable watch but one that is rewarding.

mostly for the acting

liked henshall's intriguingly repressed-seeming vigilante becoming entrenched in a society crying out for any kind of moral intervention, but it deevolves into an actor's showcase once he's exposed as just another sociopath. touches on the ways righteousness is wielded as a shield for personal insecurities & justification for the most heinous crimes, and how evil is only enabled further by collective hysteria, but seems more concerned with piling on the torturously authentic aussie miserablism.

Very grim.

Really awkward and kinda disturbing movie. Keeps a very grim tone the whole time. Also, there is gay rape and murder

The first truly scary film I've seen in a while.

australia should start using backyard trampoline springs as its premier club sample

10 Ekim 2011, filmekimi & esas kotulugun, kotulugu ortadan kaldirmak isteyenlerden uredigini, carpici ama tavir/tarz olarak yanlis anlatiyor.

Hard to follow, slow, grim as hell. Great acting though.

The way the story is told (characters are introduced, events occur) is quite confusing but this is a grim and brutal but compelling watch, with a mesmerizing central performance of a teenager being groomed into a serial killer.

This really let me down. Some of the characters were good, but it just dragged, and dragged and draaaaaggged. I kept waiting and waiting for things to get going, and they never really did. I thought it was building to something, but it wasn't. Perhaps this is a case of going in with the wrong expectations, but I just really feel disappointed.

It would be easy to accuse this film of by-the-numbers atmospheric miserablism. And it IS relentlessly bleak. But then you have to remember that this really did happen, and given that would any other tone be appropriate? The closest comparison would probably be Shane Meadows without the warmth or humor but also without his lapses into sentimentality.

Harrowing portrayal of a young mans slide into the world of a serial killer. Based on true events that happened between 1992-1999 in Australia. Great performances from all the cast and shot in a realistic documentary type style. Some scenes made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

Brutal, and all that entails, for better or worse.