mossy1 Review of The Tracker

The Tracker (2002)

Looks and sounds good but ultimately very simplistic

[5/10 · 6 November 2005]

This is a powerful film by the way the terrible beauty of the Australian outback is captured. Also by the haunting soundtrack. The story is very basic, the evil white man is chasing an Aboriginal charged with murdering a white woman. The tracker is helping the policeman to track the fugitive through the outback. The policeman also has a young gullible constable with him and also an older man. The trouble is that the plot is far too simplistic. The aboriginals are painted as noble intelligent savages while the whites are evil or at best stupid and naive. The tracker (David Gulpilil) is portrayed as far smarter and cunning than his white boss. The really strange plot is why the tracker, who knows exactly where the fugitive is but won't tell his boss and keeps leading them further and further into the bush, why the tracker keeps leading the boss to groups of "innocent" aboriginals who the boss massacres. After another massacre the tracker decides to hang the boss and leads the follower to a group of Aboriginal elders who punish the fugitive for raping a black woman by spearing him through the leg(Aboriginal law). Again the noble savage myth because in Australia, aboriginal women are subject to domestic violence and are not protected by aboriginal law. In summary, go and see it for the incredible scenery and soundtrack but don't believe the plot in any way.