5/10
An Australian movie based on the true story of the country's worst serial killer, Snowtown does a lot of little things right but gets the big picture all wrong. For starters, the acting is generally top shelf, the bleak cinematography (reminiscent of Winter's Bone meeting Gummo) nails the mood perfectly, and the sound design (lots of 90's arcade video sounds) is well done. On the other hand, the pacing falters in a big way - there are long stretches where nothing of consequence happens, or too much attention is given to needless exposition. There are moments of harsh brutality but an over-reliance on scenes involving endangered animals (a pet dog is shot, a killed deer is hacked up, a snake feasts on a mouse) smacks of a director trying to shock instead of telling a story. Again like Gummo, everybody in the story operates in kind of a half-retarded haze, so it's kind of hard for the audience to latch on to anyone, much less sympathize with who we're supposed to. At the end of the day, it's just not very enjoyable or interesting. Not bad for a first feature (I believe) but there's room for improvement.
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