The Last Wave is an excellent example of a director taking a subject that I couldn't be less interested in and making it mildly worthwhile. The bland Richard Chamberlain stars as David Burton, a lawyer in Sydney who has to defend five Aborigines against a murder charge. This could have been a compelling thriller, with themes of racial injustice and the works, but instead it focuses so heavily on the fact that the murder was a ritual one by their tribe and it delves deep into the supernatural element of it all.
The film goes heavily into this tribe and an epic prophecy about the rain coming and all of that, but I honestly got incredibly lost in the whole thing. Maybe it was my lack of interest in the subject matter that led me to fall so far behind, but I don't think the script did a solid job of getting the knowledge across. So when the epic final sequence came, I was impressed on a technical level but still didn't understand much of what was happening. Some of the blame could be removed from the script though and placed on Chamberlain, who is such a dull lead performer that it would be hard for anyone to focus on this character. There are some moments built around Burton's family that could have been touching, but when you don't care at all about the character it's kind of hard to care about his struggles with his family.
Still, I'm giving the film a slightly positive rating thanks to Weir's direction, which despite my lack of interest was able to impress several times. It takes a lot to leave me thinking about a film whose story I couldn't care less about, and that goes to show the skill of Weir's work here. As with all of his films, there are several powerful sequences that are staged with expert precision on his part. Throughout the film Burton experiences terrifying dreams of the Aborigines and these sequences get right underneath your skin and create an eerie sensation for the whole picture. They are appropriately chilling and set up the entire tone, constantly leaving you in suspense. I just wish that the story itself had been half as gripping as the individual sequences.
The film goes heavily into this tribe and an epic prophecy about the rain coming and all of that, but I honestly got incredibly lost in the whole thing. Maybe it was my lack of interest in the subject matter that led me to fall so far behind, but I don't think the script did a solid job of getting the knowledge across. So when the epic final sequence came, I was impressed on a technical level but still didn't understand much of what was happening. Some of the blame could be removed from the script though and placed on Chamberlain, who is such a dull lead performer that it would be hard for anyone to focus on this character. There are some moments built around Burton's family that could have been touching, but when you don't care at all about the character it's kind of hard to care about his struggles with his family.
Still, I'm giving the film a slightly positive rating thanks to Weir's direction, which despite my lack of interest was able to impress several times. It takes a lot to leave me thinking about a film whose story I couldn't care less about, and that goes to show the skill of Weir's work here. As with all of his films, there are several powerful sequences that are staged with expert precision on his part. Throughout the film Burton experiences terrifying dreams of the Aborigines and these sequences get right underneath your skin and create an eerie sensation for the whole picture. They are appropriately chilling and set up the entire tone, constantly leaving you in suspense. I just wish that the story itself had been half as gripping as the individual sequences.