The Stranger (M, 117 mins). Now streaming on Netflix.
Directed by Thomas M. Wright.
Based on a true story, this gritty, realistic crime drama is more like a documentary than a slow-boil thriller, although it’s that too. Perhaps surprisingly, both the main characters, Mark Frame (Joel Edgerton) and Henry Teague(Sean Harris), win our sympathy, even though they’re completely unglamorous and one of them abducted a child, Daniel Morcombe, years earlier. Some will be put off by that. Creepy stranger danger and child abduction aren’t for everyone, but for those who can deal with such things, The Stranger is well worth watching.
Daniel Morcombe’s parents have criticised the movie for being “callously disrespectful”. Their son was 13 in December 2003 when he was snatched from a bus stop on the Sunshine Coast. His killer, convicted paedophile Brett Peter Cowan, was caught after an extensive eight-year investigation. The parents say the filmmakers are profiting from a horrific incident.
The film, based on the non-fiction book The Sting: The Undercover Operation That Caught Daniel Morcombe’s Killer by Kate Kyriacou, is about an undercover police operation to entrap Cowan, fictionalised in the film as drifter and lost soul, Henry Teague. Nobody represents Daniel, who’s not in the film and is never named, referred to only as the ‘abducted boy’.
Henry’s entrapment begins on a long bus trip from Queensland to West Australia, during which underling undercover cop Paul (Steve Mouzakis) chums up with him. Viewers are in the dark for the first few minutes, until Paul, at the end of the trip, hands Henry over to more senior cop Mark, posing as a mid-level criminal. From that moment, it’s clear to viewers - but not to Henry - a sting is under way.
Mark befriends Henry, according to the sting’s plan, although a few odd outbursts and behaviours from Henry shock Mark and hint that Henry’s on to him. Much of the action takes place in shadows. Fittingly, eerie lighting and weird sounds set the tone: things to hide, hard to know who can be trusted.
While reassuring Henry that he’ll be protected during a drug deal, Mark stipulates that Henry tells all his secrets. All of them. Nothing must discredit the organisation or cause their plans to unravel. By now, Henry’s been won over. He spills his secrets. The sting succeeds.
Director Thomas Wright takes us in and out of the police’s undercover briefings, with intriguing insights into the scale of such an operation, the intricate planning involved. The plotting, script and acting are brilliant.
Mark’s a dedicated, respected cop, with a tender co-parenting relationship with his son, who’s the same age as abducted Daniel Morcombe. It’s ingenious, and subtle, to have a healthy fun-loving child in the cast, bringing Daniel’s horrific plight into the foreground. No need for flashbacks. But Mark is also something of an enigma, tormented by frightening dreams. Are they hauntings or premonitions? He seems to be disconnected, a stranger, even to himself.
A traumatised policeman, a hounded criminal walking into a trap, a child… all are victims and all arouse different levels of sympathy. Clever filmmaking.
Highly recommended.
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