Review - The Horseman

Australian films seem to fall into three categories of late - Gritty, funny or shithouse. The Horseman definitely falls into the gritty category.

A largely ignored 2008 film, this is about as brutal as it gets, an modern day Ozploitation flick.

The story is that Christian's daughter has died of a drug overdose, he gets sent a porn video which is featuring his daughter who is obviously drugged out of her mind, whilst four guys fill her out like an application. Clearly this wouldn't make you too happy, so Christian sets out to find out what happened to his daughter....oh yeah and utterly destroy everyone involved with the making of the video.

Told in a non-linear style, The Horseman sets the tone of the film within the first 2 and half minutes as Christian visits one of the guys involved however tenuous their link maybe, and totally messes him up with a crowbar before setting the room on fire. In between the beatings, stabbings and immolation's, Christian who is travelling between towns and cities in Queensland as he kills those responsible, picks up a girl named Alice, a drifter/prostitute who becomes his travelling companion and the closest thing that Christian has to a friend.
It would quite easy (and lazy) to write this film of as violence with no plot but it does try for something a bit deeper, such as the suggestion the Christian has failed as father because as every victim tells him, his daughter went to the porn video shoot of her own accord and some the discussions he has with Alice, verge on acceptance of a lost child, that even when she was alive he didn't know how to get back. Also he shows mercy to one of the guys involved in the film because he has a little girl, the kind of moments that raise this film about your standard revenge flick. 
The acting is quite good, there is a lot of yelling and screaming as you'd expect but both Peter Marshall (Christian) and Caroline Marohasy (Alice) do a great job. The rest of the cast are essentially victims and as such are pretty one dimensional.
Despite the film being called The Horseman and the lead character being called Christian, the religious bent ends there which deems the title and lead character's name fairly meaningless. If you are going to go some way in relating it back to the Horseman of the Apocalypse then I think it would be much better if you fully realised that line of thinking, rather putting one or two references that by themselves mean nothing.
A good Australian film that seemed to fall through the cracks like so many others, which is a shame because it is very well made and writer/director Steven Kastrissios certainly has some talent.