An inoffensive and middle-of-the-road scrap of ’90s-flavored scuzz cinema, Craig Lahiff’s Swerve might belong to a small but passionate Ozploitation genre known as Outback Noir. Australia is a country coated liberally by extended, flat, mostly unpopulated plains, its sparse cities therein connected by miles upon miles of unending asphalt veins. If the movies are any accurate indicator, those small towns are chock full of crooked cops, evil drug dealers, and scheming femme fatales whose motivations one can never be sure of. Also, very occasionally, quirky weirdos. The roads that stretch between these crooked little towns are used more for violent vehicular revenge and drug-related homicide than they are for actual transportation.
Swerve is a perfectly usual neo-noir flick that explores and exploits all the trends you may have gotten to know very well, were you regularly attending cinemas in the late 1990s, seeing films like Last Man Standing, Oliver Stone’s U-Turn, and The Minus Man. The violence is just as casual, the moral emptiness of the geographically empty place just as palpable, and the characters just as recognizable. I suppose part of the charm of noir films are their well-worn archetypes – can’t make a crime movie without a femme fatale! – but I would have appreciated perhaps a bit more richness or cleverness.
David Lyons plays a good-hearted cipher named Colin who witnesses a road accident on his way into a small Australian town. The survivor, a pretty blonde named Jina (Emma Booth), is married to the local sheriff Frank (Jason Clark from Zero Dark Thirty). The dead man in the accident has a suitcase full of money, and a mysterious map where he needed to take said money. Colin wants to do the right thing and turn the money over to the police, but suitcases full of money tend to be catalysts for iniquity in these types of movies, and it’s not long before seductions, secrets, and violence become enmeshed in a bizarre quest to abscond with the suitcase.
Writer/director/editor Lahiff begins the proceedings interestingly enough: there is a very creative opening sequence wherein we see how the money got to be on that particular road, passing hands through several criminals, none of whom have a single line of dialogue. That opening sequence is visual storytelling at its most efficient. It was kind of upsetting when someone actually began speaking. From there, things take all the turns you may predict. To keep things feeling a little off-kilter, we’re also treated to several shots of numerous marching bands tuning up in the streets. The forced weirdness of these images are what invite my multiple mentions of late ’90s scuzz films.
None of this is to say that Swerve is a boring flick. The performances are fine (Jason Clark is particularly good), and the raw filmmaking is compelling. Some of the twists you may not see coming, and the barren Aussie setting is filmed with a loving and familiar eye. Also Emma Booth is a delight to look at. But, overall, Swerve is possessed of an everyday sort of feeling. It’s more functional than thrilling. More efficient than moving. Lahiff has proved he capable. Perhaps next time, he’ll really rip things open.
Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can read his weekly articles Trolling, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
