Rating: NR
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 07/25/2006
SubTitles: Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD2
Run Time: 90 min
Flags: Violence, Brief Nudity, Adult Situations, Not For Children, Adult Language
Distributor/Studio: HBO Home Video
In an Australian outback town so small that children of all ages share a single classroom, teacher
Sally (
Rachel Ward) suffers the typical frustrations of life in the provinces. She really finds something to fret about when a gang of gun-toting, mask-wearing criminals kidnaps her and the students and drives them to the remote wilderness. With the kids' safety, perhaps survival, in the balance,
Sally must appease the lewdly suggestive bandits while scheming for a way to escape their clutches. After several abortive attempts result in multiple deaths, she and the oldest children manage to usher the young ones to at least provisional safety. Free but stranded in a mountain hideaway, the class must band together to survive and perhaps turn the tables on the men who continue to hunt them.
~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
A crackerjack script, a surfeit of ambience,
David Connell's terrific on-location cinematography, and the exceptional lead performance of
Thorn Birds star
Rachel Ward elevate this down-under kidnap
drama far above most other mid-'80s made-for-cable fare. Director
Arch Nicholson and screenwriter
Everett de Roche, who had previously worked together on the cheeky
horror flick
Razorback, get lots of little details right in this tale of schoolchildren and their teacher held for ransom in the Australian outback. For one thing, the plot remains admirably easy to follow despite hairpin twists and unfamiliar locales. The interaction between the kidnappers -- whose freakish disguises, such as the leader's
Father Christmas mask, are truly disturbing -- subtly drives home the pins-and-needles power dynamics that can make or break a crime. The child actors, meanwhile, portray the toddler-to-teenaged students with a nice mixture of uncomfortable petulance and bruised terror. It's
Ward, though, who makes the picture, one minute managing bathroom breaks in the criminals' hideout, the next masterminding escape attempts as crafty as they are nail-biting. If the final showdown between the children and their attackers recalls
Lord of the Flies in both its savagery and its pointed commentary, well,
Fortress raises issues of social breakdown and tribal mentality just as viscerally as that well-worn classic. In short, this is a B-movie scenario with A-list execution.
~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
;)
