The movie is extremely well staged and the young hero's dramatic lineage is established by his resonant name - Shane Cooper.

| Jun 14, 2011

Powerful central performances drive this impressive Oz thriller which features death by boomerang.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 13, 2011

The film just about transcends its abundant clichs. It's Coen Brothers lite but made with some panache.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 13, 2011

What an effective calling card for debut writer-director Patrick Hughes this is - if not for the Australian tourist board.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 12, 2011

Hughes's direction is sly without being smug, and Kwanten grounds the movie with a square decency that's never too pumped-up or cartoonish.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 12, 2011

Though Hughes overplays his directorial hand occasionally, Red Hill is still the finest Australian western since The Proposition.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 12, 2011

How much of a Western is Red Hill? The fact that at one point the bad guy shoots someone off a roof and he somersaults face-first into the street should answer that.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 7, 2011

This hugely entertaining cross-genre tale of a rural manhunt contrives to meld cop and cowboy elements into a rattling nail-biter.

| Jan 6, 2011

As short on originality and sustained tension as it is long on striking widescreen vistas and impressive technical smarts.

| Jan 3, 2011

Rehashing the cliches from several beaten-to-death movie categories doesn't add up to much.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 31, 2010

Wonderfully bitter.

| Original Score: B- | Dec 21, 2010

Red Hill is another heartening sign that the new generation of young local filmmakers have genre audiences clearly in their sights.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 24, 2010

Classically photographed for the Scope screen, the film is a cleverly conceived genre piece and centres on a star-making performance from Ryan Kwanten.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2010

[Robert] Rodriguez has made stuff like this work by demonstrating a healthy sense of self-parody. Hughes has yet to master that.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2010

The Australian high-country setting of this blood-soaked western, brimming with jagged edged rock faces and menacing mountainsides, evokes the genre universe of director Anthony Mann.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 7, 2010

Patrick Hughes's bloody, brutal Australian thriller handles its B-movie premise with surprising precision, though the inclusion of several befuddling elements annoyingly puncture the suspense.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 5, 2010

If Red Hill isn't quite a classic, it surely is a work of genuine passion for a genre that's unmistakable, and unkillable.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 5, 2010

Under writer-producer-director-editor Patrick Hughes, the suspense level is high and the action constant.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 5, 2010

The suspense that director Patrick Hughes manages to mount remains low-grade throughout and the plot never becomes entirely plausible.

| Nov 5, 2010

Like the best westerns, Red Hill is a stripped-down morality tale; like the best horror movies, its true monsters remain cloaked until the final reel.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 4, 2010