“Transfusion” Movie Review

 

“Transfusion”

Movie Review

Transfusion, directed by Matt Nable and starring Sam Worthington, Phoebe Tonkin, Matt Nable, and Susie Porter, was written by Matt Nable. The movie's plot is as follows: An Australian special forces squad breaches an enemy bunker as the first scene of Transfusion begins somewhere in the Middle East. The mission appears to be going according to plan until Ryan Logan, played by Sam Worthington, gets shot in the neck. Back in Australia, tragedy strikes once more when his wife Justine, played by Phoebe Tonkin, dies in a car accident while expecting their second child, leaving him to care for his son Billy, played by Gilbert Bradman, by himself.

Let's fast-forward seven years. Billy, who is now sixteen, has run into the law as frequently as his father has since leaving the Army. He relocates them back to his hometown in an effort to make things better as he faces the possibility of losing custody of Billy.

Unfortunately, it doesn't make things better, so Ryan turns to Johnny, played by Matt Nable, his former senior officer who has since turned criminal, in order to get some fast cash. This starts a series of things that could end up destroying everyone.

Transfusion, which is billed as a crime thriller, is actually much more of a dark drama with the Australian underground as its setting. This is not an action movie by any means, and even the thriller aspect is somewhat overshadowed by the problems the characters are facing.

Ryan's problems have a heavy layer of them. He lost his wife and pregnant kid after returning from the battlefield with PTSD, forcing him to struggle to be a single parent while hardly being functional at all. They've been continually moving from one city to another as a result, which is probably not helping Billy.

In Billy's instance, Transfusion's screenplay doesn't provide us with much information about what led him to the path he's on. An early scene of a father and son going hunting contains some hints. Like the spectator, Ryan is unable to determine the cause and finds it difficult to establish a relationship with his son. As the movie progresses and Billy's behavior gets worse, Ryan is only dragged further into the underground, which creates more issues.

This pattern is what propels Transfusion's story up until Billy smashes a car while intoxicated and becomes the target of his friend's father's blackmail, sort of bringing everything full circle. Ryan is consequently forced to make rash decisions that result in a tragic firefight.

Although it proceeds at an agonizingly slow pace, the movie eventually provides the audience with the details they need to put the puzzle together and determine what led the leads to where they were at the beginning of the movie. They are hinted to, tucked away in the film's numerous flashbacks. Transfusion is almost done by the time you have enough knowledge to comprehend the whats and whys of it, therefore for a large portion of the movie, several crucial details don't make sense.

Building on these insights, Transfusion closes by creating the specter of a perverted view of masculinity in its closing moments. Unfortunately, that concept is only minimally developed. When you consider it, the ending scene still has a very ominous undertone, but that element should have been either expanded upon or eliminated in order to focus on Ryan's PTSD and how it affects the situation.

The three action scenes the movie does have are excellent, despite the fact that there aren't many of them. It probably won't be enough to please you if you enter Transfusion expecting action, though. Those seeking a thriller with a lot of drama, or vice versa, ought to like it more.

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