Force Of Nature: The Dry 2

This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on February 22, 2024.

(M) ★★

Director: Robert Connolly.

Cast: Eric Bana, Anna Torv, Deborra-Lee Furness, Robin McLeavy, Sisi Stringer, Lucy Ansell, Jacqueline McKenzie, Tony Briggs, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Richard Roxburgh, Kenneth Radley, Ash Ricardo, Archie Thomson.

"Welp, that's it. I'm fucking lost."

Eric Bana is a good actor. Chopper - amazing. He does great comedy - check out The Castle and Funny People. He's a solid Bruce Banner, a memorable Star Trek villain, and has worked with Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, and Joe Wright.

So why do I find him so underwhelming as Aaron Falk in The Dry movies? 

The novel of The Dry is a modern Aussie genre classic - a near-perfect crime novel that was turned into a half-decent movie of the same name. The film's biggest downside was Bana's weirdly flat performance. It's the same in the sequel Force Of Nature, although here he's joined by an equally disappointing Jacqueline McKenzie (another hugely talented actor). 

The pair combine to play an unconvincing cop duo called in to help find a group of women lost in the Aussie bush on a corporate retreat. Each woman has a secret, leaving the cops to wonder what is going on out in the fog and ferns. 

In The Dry, it's Falk's personal connection to events that amplifies the classic story and provides an emotional core. That's missing from the novel of Force Of Nature, but the attempts here to shoehorn a subplot involving Falk's past are confusing, distracting and, well, terrible. 

Indeed, when the film leaves the flashbacks of the women lost in the bush, it suffers immensely. Force Of Nature is a movie of two halves. The half led by Bana and McKenzie never reaches the heights of the other half, led by Torv and Furness.

This superior half is filled with intrigue and emotion. Torv, so great in The Newsreader, makes Alice wonderfully complex - sometimes likeable, sometimes hissable. She's a standout, but along with Furness, McLeavy, Stringer and Ansell, they make their characters feel like real people in a truly dire situation, unlike Bana and McKenzie's Falk and Cooper, who never connect as cops.

Force Of Nature looks great (a few weather inconsistencies aside) and makes the most of some superb location shoots. But the story sits unevenly - its additions to Harper's plot are awkward, and its investigation plot never rings true.

A third and fourth book exist, but it remains to be seen whether they'll be made. I'm not holding my breath.