John Jarratt Movies
Lead actor, onscreen from the '70s. ~ All Movie Guide
A handful of tourists looking for adventure get more than they bargained for when they cross paths with a massive man-eating beast in this thriller. Pete McKell (Michael Vartan) is a writer for an American travel magazine who has been assigned to write a story about vacationing in rugged Northern Australia. Pete signs up for a cruise along a river that's home to a large crocodile population, with tough but pretty Kate Ryan (Radha Mitchell) serving as guide. Pete soon finds he's roughing it in the Aussie wilds with an eclectic variety of travelers, including Russell (John Jarratt), who is dealing with the death of his wife; Simon (Stephen Curry), a tactless amateur photographer; and Allen (Geoff Morrell), a member of the British upper crust making the trip with his ailing spouse (Heather Mitchell) and their rambunctious daughter (Mia Wasikowska). While Kate's former husband, who also works on the river, makes a pest of himself in the early stages of the voyage, the travelers soon find they have more to worry about when their craft is attacked by a massive 25-foot crocodile, who is just clever enough to know how to trap its prey before enjoying them for dinner. Rogue was written and directed by Greg McLean, who made a splash among horror fans in 2005 with his debut film, Wolf Creek. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Radha Mitchell, Michael Vartan, (more)
A dream vacation turns into a nightmare in this taut thriller from Australia. Ben (Nathan Phillips), Lizzie (Cassandra Magrath), and Kristy (Kestie Morassi) are three friends who, after a night of celebratory drinking, hit the road for a trip to Wolf Creek National Park, where they plan to spend a week hiking and surfing. The three friends are happy to be spending time together, especially after Ben makes the happy discovery that Lizzie is as infatuated with him as he is with her. However, after a long day on foot, Ben, Lizzie, and Kristy make the unpleasant discovery that their car's battery is dead, leaving them stuck in the middle of nowhere. Help arrives in the form of Mick (John Jarratt), a burly but good-natured outdoorsman who happens upon them; Mick tells them that he can fix their car, and offers to give them a ride to his place down the road. Grateful but a bit nervous around the gregarious stranger, Ben, Lizzie, and Kristy offer Mick a wealth of thanks for his help, and give him some money for his troubles before they fall asleep around the campfire. The next morning, the travelers find themselves bound, gagged, drugged, and separated from one another, and they realize Mick is not the good Samaritan they imagined. Wolf Creek was the first feature film from writer and director Greg McLean. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Jarratt, Nathan Phillips, (more)
Though not quite a western, this gripping Australian drama contains similar themes as it chronicles the unending struggle between native aborigines and ever-encroaching Europeans. Set in the arid red-rock desert west of Alice Springs, a region called Dead Heart by the whites and hailed as a sacred place by the aborigines, the story centers on the travails of Ray Lorkin (Bryan Brown) the local lawman who sees that Australian laws are obeyed in the tiny village of Wala Wala where he is one of only seven whites. The story itself unfolds via flashback as told by the Aboriginal village elder Poppy. The trouble begins in the town jail when an Aboriginal prisoner is discovered dead. Believing the hanging to be murder, the town tribesmen demand revenge. Lorkin, while not fully understanding aboriginal customs, has always tried to remain tolerant and respectful of their ways and so allows his deputy, Billy, to be ritually wounded during a ceremony of vengeance. More trouble brews when Aborigine bootlegger Ray Tony takes the schoolteacher's bored wife Kay out to a particularly sacred area for an illicit tryst. Later, Kate finds Tony dead. Strangely, his body shows no signs of violence. Despite the lacking evidence, Lorkin suspects a murder and demands justice. His investigation leads him down a dangerous, winding path that culminates in a tense and surprising manner. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bryan Brown, Ernie Dingo, (more)
- 1995
- NR
Mistaken identity provides the basis for this Australian screwball transvestite comedy. The trouble begins in the rural town of Worondilla in the sugar cane district of northern Australia. The town is preparing for its annual Sugar Week celebrations. This year an all-girl band is being brought in. Three of the five members are lesbians. When the band leader Courtney learns that her guitarist, Jo, has had sex with a local lothario, who also bedded lead singer, Angie, Jo is out of a job, and the band is without a guitar. They begin advertising. At the same time, an angry wife, Irene, leaves her obnoxious husband and town barber, Barry, after he pawns her piano. Barry is crazy about Elvis and loves singing his songs at the local tavern with his sons. The sons are terribly upset that their mother has left them and do not know that she is secretly staying at the same hotel as the band. When her son Mick, an effeminate looking fellow, sees the band's ad, he dresses up as a female and applies for the job. He will spend the money he earned to get his mother's piano back. More trouble ensues when Angie,who thinks of herself as straight, falls in love with the new guitarist, "Michelle." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Toni Pearen, David F. Price, (more)
- 1994
Using a blend of fantasy and reality, this film presents an extraordinary day in the lives of two female friends in their mid thirties. The primary focus of the film is upon their conversations at work where they design and write adult comics. Julia is upset because she suspects her husband is having an affair. She has been keeping her suspicions to herself, but now she is thinking of confronting him. Stephanie is single, but is feeling pressure from her biological clock -- she wants a baby. She recently returned from Tokyo and while a TV repair man eaves drops, tells Julia every detail of her sexploits there. As Julia talks, she gets more upset and shares her fears that her husband's mistress has been following her. Julia goes to the TV repair shop to pick up the things the man repaired earlier and ends up having a steamy encounter. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Victoria Longley, Angie Milliken, (more)
- 1993
In this made-for-British-TV mystery, Inspector Morse and his sidekick Lewis fly Down Under to locate a key witness against a gang of burglars. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Thaw, Kevin Whately, (more)
- 1989
The two-part Australian miniseries Fields of Fire III was the third and final annual installment in the Australian TV saga inspired by Robert Marchand's novel Cane. Returning to the fold were Todd Boyce as British expatriate Bluey and Melissa Docker as Aussie lass Dusty, whose romance and marriage had dominated the proceedings in Fields of Fire (set in the late '30s-early '40s) and Fields of Fire II (set in the immediate post-WWII era). Now it was 1951, and the emphasis was on Italian refugee Gina (Peta Toppano), newly widowed after the death of her black-marketeer husband. Returning to her roots, Gina set up a cane field with her brother Paolo, experiencing the usual trials and tribulation of small-business entrepreneurs in the uncertain years following the War. Fields of Fire III was broadcast by Australia's Nine Network on July 16 and 17, 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1988
Belinda (Deanne Jeffs) is a 16-year-old Australian girl who wants to become a ballerina. To make ends meet, she takes a job as an exotic dancer in a scrungy Sydney cabaret. Eventually she is able to pursue her original goal, but not before experiencing (and enduring) humanity at both its best and worst. Director/writer Pamela Gibbons reportedly based Belinda on her own early life. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Deanne Jeffs, Mary Regan, (more)
- 1988
This sequel to the 1987 Australian miniseries Fields of Fire was set in 1946. Having weathered WWII, British expatriate Bluey (Todd Boyce) had wed Dusty (Melissa Docker), one of his co-workers in the Australian cane fields. Once this occurred, the focus of the action shifted to a pair of new characters: Gina (Peta Toppano), an Italian refugee, and Franco (Joseph Spano), Gina's black-marketeer husband. Telecast by Australia's Nine Network in two installments on May 22 and 23, 1988, Fields of Fire II was, like its predecessor, inspired by Robert Donaldson's novel Cane. A third and final derivation, Fields of Fire III, aired in 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Fields of Fire was the first of three Australian miniseries inspired by Robert Donaldson's novel Cane. Todd Boyce starred as Bluey, an Englishmen who headed "down under" in the late '30s to work in the Australian cane fields. The story picked up momentum -- and a score of new supporting characters -- at the outbreak of WWII. The two episodes of Fields of Fire were shown by Australia's Nine Network on June 14 and 15, 1987. It was soon followed by a brace of annual sequels, cleverly titled Fields of Fire II and Fields of Fire III. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1986
Geoffrey Stubbs has been ignoring his sensual wife Dorothy's sexual needs for some time now. He has a full-time job running his butcher shop and has ambitions as a right-wing politician. Meanwhile, Dorothy has met a real hunk, a rock musician named Todd, who was at a demonstration of sexual appliances that she attended. Ever since then, he has loomed large in her erotic fantasies. The determined housewife eventually gets to bed the man of her dreams, but the experience leaves her unsatisfied. She's still friendly with him though, and he consents to entertain her guests at a big shindig held at her house. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Noni Hazelhurst, Graeme Blundell, (more)
- 1986
- R
This well-made Australian blend of Jaws and Alligator is a tense, action-packed thriller involving a monstrous crocodile, a tough ranger (John Jarratt), and a team of aborigines who worship the monster as the god "Numunwari." This leads to lots of gory clashes with the reptile, interwoven with some interesting tribal lore surrounding the legendary croc and a subplot involving a psychic connection between the beast and one of the aborigines. The climactic battle puts a sympathetic spin on the plight of Numunwari, believed to be the last of his kind -- but his unpleasant habit of snapping people in half makes it a bit difficult to muster up enough empathy for the monster. Based on a novel by Grahame Webb. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Jarratt, Nikki Coghill, (more)
- 1985
- R
Based on a novel by Morris West, this is a classic American cowboy tale set in Australia's exotic outback, with the Aborigines pitted against a rancher, Lance Dillon (John Stanton) because he is on their land. After a renegade Aborigine, Mundaru (Tommy Lewis), kills one of Lance's Brahma bull's and a ranch hand who gets involved, Mundaru spears the fleeing Lance in the shoulder but does not catch up with him to finish the job. The story of Lance's survival is the focus of the film, along with a parallel story of his wife, Mary (Rebecca Gilling), temporarily falling for Lance's opposite, Sgt. Neil Adams (Ivar Kants). The characters of the two men, and Mundaru, are contrasted against a setting of conflict that escalates out of control. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Stanton, Rebecca Gilling, (more)
- 1983
This charming love story set in the 1950s brings together an older, crafty man, a somewhat innocent young man, and a former call girl with a pure heart in an unconventional menage à trois. When the two men come into an outback town they make the acquaintance of Joycie (Lorna Lesley) who has just been fired from her job and has no place to stay. The men invite her to live with them in their shack on the outskirts of town -- and while the three are happy together, a few puritanical (and some hypocritical) townspeople start to be more and more vocal in their opposition to the trio. Their intent is to make it too hot for the threesome to even consider staying in the vicinity. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Kerr, John Jarratt, (more)
- 1983
- R
This crime drama features an interesting turn about when the six Australian hostages taken by a group of bank robbers make sure that the crooks cannot escape from them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Even today, the Australian outback (the never-never of the title) is a daunting place to be left alone. In 1901, it was even more rugged and wild. In this artful drama, Jeannie Gunn (Angela Punch McGregor), a very genteel and citified Victorian-era newlywed, joins her husband in the Northern Territory to help manage a station ("station" is Aussie for "a large ranch"). There she gradually sheds her prim ways and, thanks to her friendship with the local Aborigines, becomes a representative of an entirely new class, sometimes called "Australian outback women." In addition to chronicling the transformation of a Victorian woman, this film offers insight into the situation of Aborigine society at the time, and it received high praise from Australian reviewers. It is based on the diaries of Jeannie Gunn herself. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angela Punch McGregor, Arthur Dignam, (more)
- 1982
A rainmaker leads the village children in a Pied Piper fashion after the villagers refuse to pay him for his services. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Jarratt, Patrick Dickson, (more)
- 1982
Elderly residents of an Australian retirement home fight for their lives after a crazed slasher comes to call in this horror movie. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Kerin, John Jarratt, (more)
- 1979
In The Odd Angry Shot director Tom Jeffrey provides a cathartic Australian answer to Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter. Australia's participation in the Vietnam War was as much of an alienating and soul-searching experience for Australians as for Americans, and Jeffrey's frank portrayal of a group of Australian volunteers casts the war in a different light from the perspective of a Cimino or Oliver Stone. The story concerns a corp of Australian elite soldiers -- the Special Air Service troops (the equivalent of the United States' Special Forces group) -- and the elite group's more pragmatic and hopeful attitudes -- whiling away the time in mindless diversions and cracking jokes. Then one of their own is killed and their feelings about the war suddenly change. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Graham Kennedy, John Hargreaves, (more)
Based on a novel by Colin Theile, the Australian Blue Fin stars Hardy Kruger as a taciturn tuna boat captain. Kruger's son, played by Greg Rowe, can't do anything to please his demanding dad. Hoping to prove his worth, Rowe puts his life-and sometimes other lives-on the line. A big box-office hit in Australia, Blue Fin failed to make a dent in the US. Perhaps it would have fared better had it been released after the internationally popular Aussie film Man From Snowy River. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hardy Kruger, Greg Rowe, (more)
- 1978
In this fact-based drama, when Stephen Walls (Nathan Dawes), a four-year old, goes missing in the outback near his home in rural Australia, the population of the entire town (and several nearby towns) turns out to search for him. Unfortunately, they raise such a ruckus that they scare the little tyke, and he hides himself even more thoroughly. For four days, the townsfolk search for him, and during that time, the lad not only avoids capture, but begins to thoroughly enjoy his dangerous game of hide-and-seek. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1977
Two deaf people find companionship and love--one a race car driver, the other a hustler. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
