SEVEN SNIPERS

Stars: Radha Mitchell, Ioan Gruffudd, Annabel Wolfe, Ryan Kwanten, Damien Ryan, Charles Cottier, Pacharo Mzembe, Bianca Wallace and Tim Roth.
Writer: Andrew O'Keefe
Director: Sandra Sciberras

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Melbourne/Naarm-based genre giants Monster Pictures launch their Studio production arm with Seven Snipers, a sturdy action-thriller that boasts name players Radha Mitchell, Ioan Gruffudd, Ryan Kwanten and, somehow, Tim Roth. Watching this line-up crawl around in the long-grass of Victoria's rural hinterland playing a sternfaced version of shoot'em'ups makes for a diverting, occasionally exciting programmer; it won't feature heavily at the next AACTA industry love-in, but global sales are all but assured in markets where bullets and bodycounts are prized over critical bouquets.

The never-not-working Radha Mitchell plays single-mum Kris Hendricks, living on a vast property with some Brahman bulls and her fiesty daughter, Anja (on-the-cusp starlet Annabel Wolfe). Square-jawed and unyielding in the face of Anja's teenage attitude, there is a militaristic coolness in Mitchell's character, a trait we come to understand is a by-product of her past as an elite military dark ops soldier, codename 'Voodoo Child'. Her remote existence is a necessity; she lives with a target on her back and the shadow a Keyser-Soze-like warlord called The Dragon hanging over her.

That shadow inches closer with the arrival of Dragon scout Ryan Kwanten, posing as a real estate agent (which is worse? Not important, but...). Before Kris can shut him up permanently, he informs his boss of her whereabouts, demanding she calls in her old boss 'White Dog' (Damien Ryan) and his band heavily-armed, suitably diverse markspeople - his son 'Junior' (Charles Cottier), stealth master Nico (Pacharo Mzembe), steely Italian sharpshooter Kaldayev (Bianca Wallace) and the unit's alpha-male, 'Milk' (Ioan Gruffudd).

As 'The Dragon', Tim Roth is not given a lot to do other than dress in camo and stare down a scope, but his sheer presence suitably conveys relentlessly menacing, coldly homicidal intent. There is shading to his character and the history that he and Kris share, which spin the cat-and-mouse, B-movie tropes off into thematically interesting areas linvolving parental alienation and custody agony. Working from Andrew O'Keefe's script, director Sandra Sciberras (Surviving Georgia, 2011; The Dustwalker, 2019) wisely allows this subtext to simmer and slow-reveal, the connection adding heft to the conflict.