A great Netflix movie, one of those that only comes along every once in a while, but you haven’t seen it
Featuring spectacular performances by Sean Harris and Joel Edgerton, the Australian crime thriller The Unknown is based on the true story of the kidnapping and murder of 13-year-old Daniel Morcombe in the Australian mountain town of Sunshine Coast, Australia. In the suburbs.. Thomas M. Wright’s production of the film faced difficulties as it faced the pandemic and was only able to be recorded and completed after two years. Now finally available to the public, the production is one of the best in the Netflix catalog and has a mysterious and brooding construction and will leave your mind absorbed, completely surrendered, throughout its 2 hour duration.
The story unfolds like a puzzle. At first, the motivations and goals of each character are not clear. You have to let the dice hear and the cards are revealed one by one. What we see is a strange and mysterious bond between three strangers. First, Paul (Steve Mouzakis) and Henry (Sean Harris) meet on a plane. Both have mysterious life stories and want to escape the past. After Henry leaves, Paul says that he knows a man named Mark (Joel Edgerton) who is looking for someone to perform a service and who, in return, will have his criminal record expunged. The next day, Henry and Mark meet and start working.
Henry believes that Mark is part of a criminal drug-trafficking organization and that he must work with him to make a large delivery. When he meets these would-be mob bosses, he has to tell them everything about his life, including his criminal history, to make them go away. As the pieces of the puzzle come together, we discover that Mark and the crime syndicate are actually undercover police agents out to capture and frame Henry, who is suspected of kidnapping and murdering a young boy.
Henry and Mark, the central characters of the story, become increasingly intimate as the alleged drug delivery missions approach. The performances of Sean Harris and Joel Edgerton are so immersed in their characters that it is easy to immerse us in their truth. Henry and Mark remind us that there is humanity in each of us, heroes and monsters alike. We all have our pains, weaknesses, joys and a whole range of emotions that are part of our journey on earth.
Although it is a film about violence, “The Stranger” has no violent scenes. The story is about showing the emotional, psychological side of its central characters, how their choices and actions affect them. The audience feels a connection with both. Henry is a sociopath who feels isolated, lonely and wants to reconnect with the world. She sees Mark as an opportunity to have a friend and reconnect with humanity. At one point, Henry tells Mark that he fought with the pastor of his church for saying that all sins are forgiven, but he knows that there is no forgiveness for what he did. Your soul is doomed. He feels remorse for his past, but he has no regrets. He only knows the gravity of his actions.
And Mark gets so close to Henry that he begins to lie down in his dark and unknown side. There is a scene where Mark dreams that Henry tells him that there is darkness in his eyes, and indeed there is. But this darkness shatters Mark’s security and sanity, causing him to experience insomnia, anxiety and fear for his son’s safety. As their intimacy grows, their mental fabric is torn apart by Henry’s insidious obscurity.
The film also shows the weakness of justice, even in a country with the framework of a mega investigative operation like Australia. It takes more than eight years to open the boy’s case. Henry, despite being a redhead, is smart and cunning enough to cover the tracks of his crimes. His arrest without evidence will not guarantee his conviction. The police have to work to get much more than his confession.
Scenes from Mount Beerwah can be seen throughout the film, especially in the opening and closing scenes. It was where Daniel Morcombe’s remains were found in real life. Much more than a police thriller, The Stranger is a dive into the abyss of the human mind and shows how difficult it is to escape when you’re trapped by evil.
movie: I know
Direction: Thomas M. Wright
Year: 2022 year
Gender: Suspension / Police
Note: 10/10
