“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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