Force of Nature: The Dry 2

 This review may contain spoilers!

 

Force Of Nature: The Dry 2 is the sequel to The Dry (2020) and an adaptation to Jane Harper's novel of the same name. In this Aaron Falk is called out to a wilderness retreat to help find a criminal contact who has gone missing while on a tramp. As a storm front closes in on the area time is of the essence to track the missing person and establish if something truly sinister has transpired in the woods.

 

Something that I really enjoy when it comes to the depiction of Aaron falk is the calm nature of these investigations; the actual building of a case. You really feel like Falk is a steady figure, who very deliberately takes his time with interviews and pieces things together in a manner that is precise. There's a phenomenal scene as we shift towards the big reveal in which we see Falk piece it all together and the gravity of the scene entirely shifts. Just the nature of the investigation, from something standard to something frantic is something I was very affixed to.

 

The strongest aspect of this film was beyond a shadow of a doubt the way it was shot. Everything was so sleek and immersive, there was a modern style here that made the Australian bush look mysterious, ancient and entirely beautiful. Yet the way the camera pushed in hard for those moments of conflict was really gripping too. I also found Peter Raeburn's score to rreally drive home the haunting sense of dread, it pushed the ticking clock factor right over the edge.

 

Anna Torv, who played Alice, is a character who I really enjoyed watching descend into desperation and 'flight or flight' mode; Torv's character is one you sort of root for because she is competent and aligned with the protagonists but I genuinely appreciated that Torv had no qualms with playing her as downright mean. Deborra-Lee Furness, who played Jill Bailey, is a real range of talent at work here; Furness' prsentation of cool-headed leader who gets quite spiteful and aggressive under pressure was one of the better performances. Richard Roxburgh, who played Daniel Bailey, is really vile corporate figure that gets some very vixious dialogue; I loved the scenes in which he and Bana got to have a little verbal sparring match.

 

However, the best performance came from Eric Bana, who played Aaron Falk. For so much of this movie I wasn't sure of this but by the end I was entirely caught up in Bana's Falk. In a lot of ways I forgot what made Bana so good in this role and it's all laid out in this feature from start to end. Bana makes Falk a very grounded figure, you truly believe he could be a detective calmly setting out on a case and attacking things methodically. He has this very calm and even presence that makes him come across as extremely professional and highly competent. You swiftly realise that Aaron falk isn't Sherlock Holmes or one of these investigators who solves everything with great leaps of logic; he really works at the puzzle laid out before him. I loved the moments of quiet anger he displayed in the face of local police bureaucracy and the capitalist antagonist (Roxburgh) hesquared off against. The grief we get from Bana in the face of losing a witness is a nice raw moment, not oversold but exactly so. I think Eric Bana has crafted a very truthful role here, in that it feels like a person cut out of this world so truthfully he barely feels fictional.

 

The danger with a little Aussie crime drama getting a sequel is really managing to carry on those deep personal stakes the first feature had. In The Dry Aaron Falk was deeply, personally attached to his case and there was a tragedy happening in the past and the present that made us care deeper. In Force Of Nature they go for branching storylines again; which undercuts things this time. The backstory for Falk and his mother really ought to have been a scene of recounting in the present because it trampled all over the pacing and felt extremely confusing to watch in the context of the greater plot. While my favourite part of the film is the cross-examinations the present storyline is a lot of exposition dumping and wouldn't make for the most evoking watch if it wasn't for Bana really doing some heavy duty work. The main flashback of the tramp/incident really takes centre stage for most of the film and it is just a whirlwind of inconsequential conflict that doesn't lead to much at all. There's a lot of subplot that just feels like it's there to dress up a scene, a corporate criminal backstory that isn't interesting enough to fuel this whole thing and some extremely obvious red herrings. Ultimately, I was especially disappointed with the reveal of the major 'antagonist', it's an underwhelming moment that doesn't feel like good payoff. Everything about the final act comes off as blunder; the crime is a blunder, we blunder into the big reveal and the writers blundered up a nice, shocking end. I wasn't entirely impressed with the antagonists of The Dry either but this one just felt like an abrupt surprise for the sake of it.

 

The editing for this feature set a snail's pace, something the first feature slogged through too. It was made worse by the fact there is no great transition work or visual note for the shifting storylines which would have been a massive support to that confusing insert. I wouldn't normally talk to sound editing and mixing either but the way the film score blasted over the diegetic sound was obscene at times and one of the worst qualities about Force Of Nature.

 

Robin McLeavy, who played Lauren, was hard role to really get much of a sense of; the Lauren character was meant to be meek but McLeavy could've really fell into the background a lot less given how important her role really was. Sisi Stringer, who played Beth, doesn't live up to the hardened figure recovering from addiction and a criminal arrest; Stringer's attempts to come off as the 'tough one' feel stereotypical at best. Lucy Ansell, who played Bree, oversells the goody two-shoes sister part; Stringer's role feels overly sweet and it comes off as quite artificial. Jacqueline McKenzie, who played Carmen, is a performance that is very hard to watch; McKenzie doesn't feel like a character onscreen but rather a person reciting lines she had just memorised. Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Archie Thomson and Ash Ricardo, who played Eric Falk, Young Aaron Falk and Jennifer Falk respectively, felt like additions to the narrative that never really justified their presence; Taylor was a particularly hard figure to believe as a father to Thomson or a husband to Ricardo. Tony Briggs and Kenneth Radley, who played Ian Chase and Sergeant King respectively, were supports on the investigation who spouted a lot of the more dull exposition; I wish the conflict between Bana and Radley could have been explored a little more.

This looks sleek like a car commercial and has all the substance of one too. I would give Force Of Nature: The Dry 2 a 4/10.