Daniel Scharf Movies

A man on the edge of collapse falls into a well of despair in this psychological drama from Australia. Tom White (Colin Friels) is an architect who is emotionally reaching the end of his rope. Edgy, confused, and losing touch with reality, White finds himself obsessively working on a project from which he was removed weeks before, and his hands shake so badly he can barely hold a pencil. Tom's superiors suggest he should spend a few days away from the office to regain his bearing, but instead of returning home to his wife (Rachael Blake) and children, he goes on a bender. After getting beaten in a fist fight, he wanders into a gay club and strikes up a conversation with a hustler named Matt (Dan Spielman). Matt lets Tom stay at his flat for a few days before Tom moves on and drifts into an affair with Christine (Loene Carmen), who runs a carnival-sideshow shooting gallery. Tom sinks deeper and deeper into hopelessness and depression, and eventually finds himself living on the streets and running with Jet (Jarryd Jinks), a troubled teenager who blots out his misery by sniffing glue. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A honest police detective begins to crack under the strain of the cynicism and lawlessness surrounding her in the Australian crime drama Redball. The film opens with a sequence that's an apt metaphor for what follows -- two cops on the beat in Melbourne discover a body floating in the Yarra river and call in detectives to handle the matter. The plainclothes cops, however, prefer not to be bothered, and figure if they wait long enough, the body will float into another precinct's jurisdiction. Meanwhile, Jane Wilson (Belinda McClory), known to her friends as "JJ," is assigned with her partner Robbie Walsh (John Brumpton) to investigate a string of especially grisly child killings committed by an unknown lunatic the police have nicknamed Mr. Creep. While JJ has always been an idealist who tries to play fair and by the book, she's grown disgusted with the corruption and abuse of power that goes on around her, ranging from simple laziness in procedural matters to brutal violence and rape committed by her fellow officers. When evidence begins to suggest Mr. Creep may be a member of the police department, some of JJ's colleagues fear she's become worn to an emotional frazzle and may just break, bringing down not only herself but every member of the force who's not on the straight and narrow in the process. A violent and downbeat drama, Redball was shot on digital video and transferred to film for theatrical release, with its low-budget look enhancing the emotional grit of the story. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The owner of a posh Australian health clinic uses the residents of a small suburban community named Pebble Court as a test market for some revolutionary new vitamin supplements. Unbeknownst to the locals, the pills have some particularly unpleasant side effects, as illustrated by the messy death of her boyfriend after he discovers the truth and is given a lethal dose. Before long, the locals are beginning to mutate, melt, explode, or turn into deformed psychopathic monsters. As Pebble Court becomes a miniature apocalypse, a pair of detectives plod their way through one bloody massacre after another before finally stumbling onto the diabolical Dr. Carrera (Ian Smith), inventor of the lethal vitamins and numerous other medical disasters. The odd, disjointed and episodic feel of this film is due to the script being assembled out of four separate stories by director/co-writer Philip Brophy. Without a solid framing story or sympathetic lead to give them cohesion (aside from the obvious premise that Carrera's drugs are not particularly healthy), the disparate vignettes fall apart faster than the doctor's victims. That said, there is enough wry humor, frantic pacing and boisterous gore effects to sustain horror audiences' interest for the abbreviated running time. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Isabelle Eberhardt dramatizes the tragic true story of the iconoclastic Swiss-born writer, who gained notoriety for both her lifestyle and her work in North Africa at the turn of the twentieth century. Eberhardt (Mathilda May) began dressing as a man and converted to Islam in her teens. As the film opens, she returns from the African desert to tend to her ailing father in Geneva. After his death, the wife of the Marquis de Mores summons her to Paris. The Marquis has gone missing in North Africa, because of Eberhardt's familiarity with the region, his wife pays her to go and track her husband down. Eberhardt settles in Algiers, where, hindered by the French authorities, she quickly gives up the search for de Mores, assuming that he's dead. She stays in North Africa, journeys frequently into the desert, and writes about her experiences for publisher Victor Barrucand (Claude Villers). The hard drinking Eberhardt meets Slimene (Tcheky Karyo of The Patriot), a Foreign Legion soldier, and falls in love with him. Through him, she makes contact with the secretive Sufi brotherhood of Qadriya. As she witnesses the abuses of the French colonists, her writings grow more political in nature and she starts to get more attention. One French military officer, Comte (Richard Moire) imprisons and abuses her. When an Arab swordsman viciously attacks her, Eberhardt holds Comte responsible. He eventually arranges for her deportation. But the resilient Eberhardt returns to North Africa, against Slimene's wishes. There, another French officer, Major Lyautey (Peter O'Toole) befriends her. He seems a decent man, but when he asks her to report to him on Arab groups hostile to the French, she wrestles with her conscience. Australian director Ian Pringle would later go on to produce Romper Stomper, starring Russell Crowe. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

The producers of this black and white art film showed it around at every film festival they could get it entered into, from Melbourne to Cannes. An enigmatic and very poetic drama with an inconclusive storyline, it may not be everyone's cup of tea. The story concerns a somewhat disoriented young man, Jack (Noah Taylor), who turns up on the streets of West Berlin speaking only Russian. Not only that, but everything he says is a quotation from classic Russian novels by Gogol and Dostoyevsky. He is treated like the curious character he appears to be. It is not until he runs into a girl who reminds him of a favorite character in one of the novels that he begins speaking a language anyone can understand, and it begins to seem as though he might be a slightly deranged Australian. He wanders the streets of Berlin with the girl and her female friend, talking about anything and everything in English, falls in love with one of them, and fantasizes about the the girl and himself in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide