Goldstone

A missing persons case brings a federal cop to the Australian Outback, where a big mining operation is pretty much sustaining the community. Which means everyone with any power in the community is eager to look the other way regarding any questionable activities. Like, bringing in young girls from various countries in Asia as power of a sex slavery thing.

The fed, a Detective Swan, is a rather disheveled widower, who appears drunk for a good 80% of the movie. He's also Indigenous, and his father grew up in a community (or would it be considered a reservation? Are they called that in Australia?) in this very location, but was taken away and put with a family elsewhere, a white family I'm guessing from what I've read. We find that out maybe halfway through. I would have described him as "tanned", so I was a little surprised when, in the first 15 minutes, the local cop described Swan to the mayor as 'black black'.

(The cop had previously described him as simply 'black', then the mayor asked 'Indian black or African black?' Answer was neither, apparently).

I'm assuming Detective Swan's mother's family was of European descent. The practice of taking Indigenous kids away from their families and putting them with white families and having them mostly just grow up around white folks went on long enough there's a lot of that (it came up for a bit in that book In Tasmania I read last year), so I shouldn't have been surprised. But I was. Anyway, now you know, so you won't be if you watch this.

Swan barely reacts to most of what the white folks in town tell him. He slumps in his chair and if he responds, it's with a disinterested or non-comittal grunt. I assume he knows it's bullshit, and not any kind that is useful to him. If he doesn't respond, they'll shut up and leave sooner. He might also be drunk, but he chats easily enough with an older Indigenous man, an elder named Jimmy. Jimmy's the one who fills in some of what Swan didn't know about his past, gives him a chance to get in touch with a part of him he didn't know.

The local cop has learned to look the other way, but has just about hit his limit with it. A lot like the lady that looks after the girls brought into the brothel. Just kind of given up on the world ever getting better, and telling people to accept it's going to be shitty.

The mayor and the guy running the mining operation are bribing one of the top people in the Indigenous community to give a thumbs up to expanding the mine into a sacred burial area. The mine operator is a kind of outwardly cheerful, goofy looking schlub. He can afford to look affable, because he's the one promising jobs while making empty promises and slipping alcohol into a supposedly dry community. The mayor is this short lady with a big fake smile plastered on her face, that never reaches the eyes. Trying to play at being some kind mother/grandmother figure. Baking people pies and stuff to look nice. Her expression doesn't really change, even when she makes veiled threats or insults. The smile doesn't droop much, and the eyes are already unfriendly.

So which pair fit the definition of the banality of evil? The ones who stopped caring one way or the other and just go with it, or the two actively doing awful crap but excusing it? I'm sure the mayor is making a lot of dough out of this, but she and the operator seem to have a thing going, so you wonder if she bought in fully because of that. But she told Swan she decided after yet another failed marriage to look out for herself. So it's probably the first two. Them or the security guys at the mine. They're still protecting the mine operator when he's jumping into a small airplane to flee with a briefcase full of something, and they're getting left behind. Why the hell you guys risking getting shot?

The shootout in the last fifteen minutes feels perfunctory, other than the number of mine employees who seem to continue doing whatever they were doing even once guys with guns start popping up and firing at each other. Like they felt the movie had to have a shootout, maybe for some limited catharsis for the audience. I guess it makes sense the mine wouldn't simply let the cops charge in like that. It's a little weird the mine has well-armed security guys, but also a biker gang on retainer to do other stuff. Just tell the security guys to take off their stuff with the mine company logo on it.

There are a lot of shots of the vast expanse of land. Shots from the air of a single car, driving down a perfectly straight road to the horizon, no structures, vehicles or anything in sight. Or long shots of someone looking out the window and seeing pretty much the same thing. Other than at the mine or the Indigenous community, I don't think we ever see more than one building in a shot at one time. The bar/brothel is by itself. So is the police station, the mayor's home, the place they end up letting Swan live in. It's one building, and a lot of open ground. You can see how things can be covered up or lost, because there's so much room for things to be lost. When Jay finds the missing girl, she isn't hidden, she's in the middle of a field. It's so remote nobody found her, or else someone did and it was easy to keep quiet about it.