Tiger burns

The Hunter (M)
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Frances O’Connor, Sam Neill
SCANT reports from isolated, rural Tasmania indicate the impossible – there’s a Tasmanian Tiger still out there.
And Redleaf, an international weapons biotech company, wants it – for a toxin it allegedly uses to stun its prey.
Enter Willem Dafoe, the gaunt American everyman actor, who promptly straps on a rifle and a backpack and enters the fray.
Along the way, he meets up with Frances O’Connor, the wife of a man missing on his own Tiger hunt. She and her two children provide the new tiger hunter with room and board, and he provides a lacking male influence around the place.
Willem’s local guide is Sam Neill, a quintessential rough old Aussie bushman.
Along the way, the conflict between local greenies and loggers will be at the forefront.
Willem’s life segues between his thawing relations with humanity on the home front, and being an ice-cold killer in the field.
The tiger proves elusive, but every trip reveals a little more of the mystery hiding in the bush – both in relation to the beast itself, and its even more beastly hunters.
As you’ve no doubt gathered by now, there’s a lot going on here, but it’s all rather deftly handled.
Performances are strong, led by the arthouse Dafoe.
It’s well-scripted, and the clash between the loggers and the greenies is particularly well depicted, if more than a little one-sided.
This is a properly grown-up Australian film, from the producers of Animal Kingdom.
Shot on film – thank God – it has very high production values, cinematography, and the computer-generated Tassie Tiger isn’t badly done, either. – Jason Beck