Outback (2019 film)

Category: Survival drama

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Outback is an Australian survival drama that tells the story of an unreliable car, the hostile outback and a split-second decision to take a shortcut which all spell disaster for two British tourists.

The main premise of this film is that a man and his girlfriend to whom he planned on proposing find themselves lost in the harsh Australian outback while attempting a cross-country drive. The ratcheting emotional tension centering around the man's rejected proposal leads him to make a rash decision to make up time by taking a shortcut down an unpaved road at the suggestion of his GPS.

But no good deed goes unpunished as the GPS loops the couple on a featureless road with no obvious way back, leading to the second big mistake - getting out of the car.

But get out the car they do to walk up a hill and spy the landscape, and by the time they get back, the battery in the car has gone flat which renders their only hope back to safety moot, so it now becomes a struggle for survival as the couple have to not only have to hold on to dear life against the vast array of fatal Australiana, but also against their emotions.

The race for survival and hope for rescue ensues, with the bulk of the rest of the film featuring the couple wandering the harsh terrain.

Not going to spoil the outcome here, but I will say this - there is a scene where one of the couple drinks wiper fluid to ensure they have enough in their bladder to be able to piss in to a bottle for the other person to drink to keep them going. Don't say I didn't warn you.

As a film, though, it just felt empty. It didn't break that much ground and despite the subject matter and plot, I didn't feel an emotional high or the relief in tension at the end. To me, this film came across as more of an exercise in film-making to give someone something to do, as opposed to an artistic endeavour created to make us reflect on the frailties and hubris of modern life.

Despite that, I gotta say that the make-up and the videography teams did a helluva job - watching the lead couple struggle under the heat of the Australian sun. Close-ups of cracked skin, parched lips and the bodily fluids expelling after the aforementioned wiper fluid drinking - all made me think that the producers made the actors get lost in the Australian outback for real and just happened to have a camera crew waiting!

Is this film worth watching. Yeah. Not a solid yes, but a yes nonetheless - if it comes up in your feed and you don't have anything better to do, give it a go.

FINAL RATING: 3/5