Goldstone

Jay Swan is a detective and of Aboriginal descent. He comes to Goldstone on a missing persons inquiry; it is a mining town in the middle of the desert. The local officer Josh works alone and has settled into the town's order. The mining company is the largest employer in the region; the mayor works with them and the Indigenous land council is about to sign a permit. When Jay starts asking questions everyone becomes uncomfortable. The missing person is an Asian woman and the trail leads to a camp. Ivan Sen writes, directs and shot the film. Aaron Pedersen plays Jay and Alex Russell plays Josh; Jacki Weaver and David Gulpilil are in the cast. It is an Australian production. The film continues an earlier one with the same character; the two are cited together and the series later moved to television. Sen takes on several technical roles himself on most of his films, which keeps the budget low. The matter it treats is land; the mining permit needs the council's approval and the pressure comes from there. The desert landscape works inside the narrative; the shots from above show the place like a map. The narrative also takes up trafficking and ties it to the mining economy. Aaron Pedersen's performance is closed in and the character explains almost nothing. Its limit is pace; the narrative is slow and the expectation of tension is met late. Who it is for: viewers who like Australian cinema and provincial crime films. Who it is not for: it is slow, the plot thin, and the ending hard.