Instead, Cut Snake doesn’t quite live up to its name, and instead coils itself to sleep around a piece of fairly trite melodrama. It feels like a hamfisted attempt at redemption, and it would have been more compelling and understated to see the character remain absolute in his dedication to destroying Mirv’s happiness as revenge for being abandoned. Her reactions felt out of place considering the setting, but were eventually reneged without much analysis into the character’s thought process, which is a shame considering the work put in by De Gouw.Ĭapping the story is an improbable finale which goes for an emotional gut punch that seems obvious, but also fairly in-elegant due to the change of heart that occurs in Pommie. Part of this is due to a fairly underwhelming handling of Paula, who serves as outsider and main source of insight into the knotted threads of Mirv and Jim’s past. It’s difficult to dislike, but it fails to really ignite any great interest. The fashion remains a high point, and the in your face attitude of the male characters suggests that there was a concerted effort to try and conduct a deeper exploration of the issues it eventually comes to focus on.

Otherwise, there’s little to get excited about. Allusions towards the reveal make themselves known in a few instances, and although it isn’t subtly handled - machismo and violence often get in the way of true emotions - it’s certainly a believable story. I don’t want to spoil it, because the novel angle it takes is the best thing going for this film, and it is a smart twist to an rote story. There’s more to their past than crime and prison though, and Paula has her illusions shattered by Pommie as he drops some truly incendiary bombs throughout the film. Summary: Set in Melbourne in the mid-1970s, Cut Snake tells the story of Sparra Farrell (Alex Russell), an ex-convict who is trying to make a new life for himself in a new city.

Pommie is back, and he’s tempting a reluctant Sparra back into a life that he’s long since left behind, threatening to upset Sparra and and Paula’s (Jessica De Gouw) relationship. The time bomb within begins to tick when he looks up his old cellmate, Sparra (Alex Russell), whom he anticipates becoming his partner in crime, only to find that the lad’s gone straight, has a regular job, and is setting up house in a country town with his fiance, Paula (Jessica De Gouw). It’s never really justified, but it makes for a unique setting at the very least, although Seventies Australia could easily be Seventies UK or US here.įor the most part, this is a by the numbers affair. The Seventies setting either serves to cast the film in a lovely sun kissed glow, to adorn the cast in some impressively tight clothes, or to hint at certain identity politics that end up being the focus of the biggest twist of the film. He’s all muscle and tattoos, played with an impressively predatory glint in the eyes, and he’s desperate to be re-united with his former prison mate Mirv “Sparra”, played with chiseled stoicism by Alex Russell. Returning to a homegrown Australian project after a dalliance with Hollywood, Sullivan Stapleton is the freshly released prisoner Jim “Pommie” Stewart.

Cut snake pommie and chris