Movie review: Last Cab to Darwin

Michael Caton stars in this touching ensemble piece.

The film version of a well-regarded stage play, which was itself based on a true story, was always going to be at high risk of being a weepie of cloying sentimentality. But this Ocker drama, Caton's biggest role since he felt the serenity as Darryl Kerrigan in The Castle manages to sidestep those pitfalls.

It's too long by about half an hour, it features a wince-inducing performance from a seriously miscast Weaver and it plays fast and loose with some of the realities of end-of-life palliative care. But there's an awful lot to like about it as a touching ensemble piece.

Caton plays Rex McRae, a Broken Hill taxi driver, whose down time is spent at the pub with his three mates (Field, Howard, Dukes) or dancing alone to jazz records while enjoying dinner of a stubbie and a luncheon sausage sandwich. His relationship with his aboriginal neighbour Polly (Lawford-Wolf) is both fractious and intimate, often at the same time.

Rex gets the bad news from doctors at the same time that the debate over doctor-assisted suicide is in the news (it was briefly legal in the Northern Territory before being struck down by federal law). He resolves to drive his canary-yellow Ford Falcon 3000km to Darwin to engage the services of euthanasia advocate Dr Nicole Farmer (Weaver), who has developed a computerised device similar to that briefly and legally used in the NT, by Dr Philip Nitschke.

In a road movie by turns funny and poignant, Rex shares his adventures with incorrigible ratbag Tilly (Coles Smith), an aspiring aboriginal footballer battling the bottle, and Julie (Hamilton), an English nurse working as a barmaid in an outback pub.

Michael Caton in Last Cab To Darwin.

Director Sims, who made the under-appreciated World War I drama Beneath Hill 60, makes full use of magnificent Red-Centre locations and some catchy Oz music, as he steers a precise course between the lachrymose and the light-hearted, even if the finale rather dodges the ethical questions the story has set up. He's aided by particularly charming turns from Coles Smith and Lawford-Wolf, and Caton is magnificent, visibly fading before our eyes.

It makes it easier to accept some of the continuity blunders (which include self-cleaning clothes and cars) and the unconvincing work of Weaver, struggling with an underwritten character whose self-interest is both implausible and distracting. Despite these flaws, the movie is well worth a look.

Cast: Michael Caton, Ningali Lawford-Wolf, Mark Coles Smith, Emma Hamilton, David Field, John Howard, Alan Dukes, Jackie Weaver
Director: Jeremy Sims
Running time: 122 mins
Rating: M (offensive language)
Verdict: Road movie with heart