Director Heath Davis
Starring Ben Geurens, Jessica McNamee, Steve Le Marquand, Peter Phelps, Damian Hill
Rated 15+
Score 4.5/6

When tech entrepreneur Ryan Black returns to his remote hometown for his father’s funeral, old family tensions are reignited as he’s reunited with his wise-cracking ex-con brother. But when Ryan becomes the target of a deadly extortion scam at the hands of desperate small-town criminals, the dark underbelly of the sleepy mining town is exposed.

I always get a little excited when I get the chance to review an Australian film. It should be noted that Locusts is premiered to the world at this year’s Gold Coast Film Festival. It should also be noted that this is NRL star for South Sydney George Burgess’ acting debut. Though I have to admit I don’t follow the NRL as much as I did when I was younger and prettier, therefore I am about as familiar with Burgess the NRL Player as I am with Burgess the actor. However, what I will say is this under the rule of five (the rule of 5 states that states that sometimes definitive judgement on an actor or director’s work until I’ve seen an appropriate number of their movies) that if the next movie Burgess stars is as good as Locusts, I’m very interested to see the next movie he stars in.

I really wasn’t that familiar with either writer Angus Watts or director Heath Davis’ work. It was good to see that a few familiar faces where cast, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Angry Anderson was cast as himself. I loved the camera work it’s clear that Locusts was shot in some beautiful country. Early on just as things are starting to get crazy For Ryan, I found myself drawing connections between this and iconic Australian movie Wake in Fright, though that was towards the end of the first act and Locusts ended up going off in its own direction to embrace its own brand of craziness. One a side note and without giving any spoilers away I would like to say that Locusts has in my opinion (as a movie who happens to be a paraplegic) has the most hilarious traffic related death that I’ve seen in 2019.
There are lot of movies with a larger budget that have been released in recent years could learn lesson from Angus Watts about the character arc and the importance having characters overcoming obstacles from their life.

I enjoyed Ben Geurens and Nathaniel Dean’s performances as Ryan and Tyson Black, they had some great on-screen chemistry. It was good to see Peter Phelps pop up in movie, I think the last movie I saw him in was Lantana. I also that Andy McPhee and Jessica McNaMee both gave very layered performances. My biggest complaint about Locusts was that there seemed to be this looming deadline hanging over Ryan’s head for half of the movie and it seemed to me that Davis seemed to be unable to kick Locusts into the high gear and make deadline the looming threat that it is.