I didn’t want to see this film, as it didn’t look too impressive, but with my dad and step mother to see it while back East, and have to say it was worse than I thought possible. The film is not epic, though it tries to be, and is interminably long, it’s almost 3 hours feeling more like 8. The digital effects all look very low budget, and much of the film seems to have been shot on badly lit green screen, with dramatic lighting that doesn’t fit. And the story is very mediocre, and not very moving (the original ending sounds much better), and the film tries to cram too much into one story, which should have been much shorter, and could have been just all around done better. This film is a let down on every front, trying to pull heart strings, but if you want to see a real moving film about Australia and it’s treatment of Aborigines, just go out and see Rabbit Proof Fence and don’t waste your time with this useless film.

Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) is a noble Englishwoman who travels to Australia to find her husband, and get him to sell the cattle ranch that is losing money. She believes her husband is cheating on her, and that is why he won’t come home. An Australian Cattle Baron owns all the other cattle land, this is King Carney (Bryan Brown) and he wants to corner the market and get the military contract to supply cattle for the British in World War II. Lady Ashley arrives with all her bags, and gets a ride to the cattle ranch Faraway Downs with a man called the Drover (Hugh Jackman) and his friend Magarri (David Ngoombujarra). The drover is friend with Aborigines, so isn’t liked by many. Lady Ashley arrives to find that her husband is dead, and the guy who runs the ranch Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) blames the death on the Aborigine King George (David Gulpilil. Sarah learns what is actually going on from a mixed boy named Nullah (Brandon Walters) who is the grandson of King George, and whose father is in fact Fletcher, though he won’t accept him, and he has to hide from the police who will take him along with other halfcasts to be trained as servants. Sarah learns that in fact Fletcher works for King Carney, and is going to marry his daughter, and he is stealing the best cattle and giving them to King Carney, so Sarah fires him, but he takes all the cowboys, so she must get the Drover, the Aboriginal women, Nullah and the drunken accountant Kipling Flynn (Jack Thompson) to drove the cattle to docks and get the cattle contract.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

The trip is troubled, because Fletcher and his men go out and try to destroy them, causing major stampedes in which Flynn is killed, and poisoning water, so they have to follow King George across the hard desert, and then run the Cattle to get in front of King Carney’s cattle.

The Drover and Sarah fall in love, and start to run Faraway Downs, though he always leaves to go Drove, and keep his independence. When King George wants to take Nullah on a walkabout, and she wants to protect him, and the Drover want stop him, so she leaves on a long contract, and she tells him not to come back. Nullah tries to run off so he can go on walkabout, but is taken by the cops to be trained as a servant, so Sarah moves to the dock town to try and save him, and see what she can do to get the boy she considers her son back. She takes a job with the military, and is going to make a deal with Fletcher, who has killed Carney and married his daughter so he could become the big cattle man,

Nullah is taken to an island off the coast, where he is trained by priests, and King George is arrested for the death of Sarah’s husband, though they believe that Fletcher did it.

THe Japanese come in and attack, first attacking the island where Nullah is, then the military buildings in town, and when the Drover arrives, he thinks that Sarah has been killed, but was Fletchers wife.

The Drover and Magarri get a boat and go and save the kids, though Magarri is killed. The Drover brings the kids back and is re-united with Sarah. Fletcher who has lost everything is going to shoot Nullah, but is killed by King George.

The Drover and Nullah and Sarah head back towards Faraway Downs, and Sarah lets Nullah go on his walkabout with King George.

Words then talk about the Aboriginal Children called the Stolen Generations and were taken away until 1973 when the law was changed.

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Just an awful and stupid movie all the way around.