This is a simple boy-and-his-dog story about coming of age in the late sixties-early seventies - I must admit I haven't seen the first "Red Dog" film, but the dog here is more or less a device to help tie together the various events as a boy goes out to stay with his grandpa in the middle of Western Australia while his mum is suffering from mental illness (the potential here for an interesting examination of mental illness is largely skipped - the mother only appears right at the beginning of the film and we're otherwise informed on how she's doing). Along the way he meets a diverse range of people from the local aboriginals to a pair of stockmen with a secret (this secret literally appears in one scene and has no relevance to the rest of the movie whatsoever) to his first crush on his attractive young tutor, plus Lang Hancock (another scene that kinda only matters while it's going on, and a very weird one since it's a kinda comfy lovable Lang we get - is there some mining money financing this?)
The framing device of this being the recollections of a businessman who grew up allows Jason Isaacs to make an appearance (and between this and the trailer for "Lion" seen at the same session, it's looking like a good year for British actors doing Australian accents), plus allows the prequel to use a bit of footage of the first film. Bryan Brown does his gruff Australian thing as well as ever. Levi Miller looks overly-trained as a kid actor - there isn't much naturalism in his line readings and it does make him a slightly unengaging protagonist. But apparently he's going to be a thing in the Australian film industry for a while (since he's also in the upcoming "Jasper Jones"), so I'm going to either have to put up with him or just not watch Australian movies for a while.
This is cheesy Australian myth-making, but I will say the sad bits did get me weepy, the happy bits got me grinning and the outback looks suitably impressive. It's firmly middle-of-the-road comfort food.
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