The Tracker

Starts slow & boring, becomes interesting for the last third. Hated the music & paintings. An interesting effort.

A unique sort of Western, with paintings used to represent the atrocities (or the harder scenes to film), as well as a very pervasive use of music and its lyrics (as done not as well in the overall superior The Proposition). Apart from lacking in the storyline department, the antagonist character is one of the most ridiculous villains I've ever seen -- I know there were assholes like this back in the day, but Gary Sweet plays him with nothing but shallow villainous tropes.

In some ways it's a brave achievement, but it could also be accused of being politically correct relativist junk. De Heer is quite a capable director, but he often has problems expressing his ideas with the degree of clarity necessary for them to be effective. While his films are often praised for their bluntness as well as their ambiguity, particularly in Australia, this viewer suspects that the two aspects of his work frequently cancel each other out. That's certainly the case here.

"The Tracker is the first significant movie to find its way into American theaters in 2005." - Jay Antani