Movie Review: Beneath Hill 60

Beneath Hill 60 celebrates the Aussie can-do attitude. Photo / Supplied

Rating: 4/5

The heart-in-mouth blindfold game of subterranean cat and mouse that was tunnel warfare is inflected with a broad Australian twang in this extremely creditable based-on-fact World War I drama.

The story, little known even across the Ditch, is about the lead-up to a 1917 attack at Messines Ridge in Belgium, in which 19 huge mines - creating the biggest man-made explosion the world had seen - were detonated under the strategic target of the title.

The explosion caused untold German casualties although, as the film's end-titles make clear, it had little lasting effect on the war's course. No matter. This is primarily a celebration of the Ocker can-do attitude: that big bang was the work of the 1st Australian Tunnelling Company, miners from the bush of NSW and Queensland, who brought their underground expertise to foreign fields.

Filming in ditches and muddy fields near Townsville, director Sims extracts maximum value from a paltry $10 million budget as he evokes with extraordinary effectiveness the claustrophobic feel of life in the tunnels and the muddy hell of the trenches above.

The story's anchor is Lieutenant Oliver Woodward (Cowell) whose arrival is regarded askance by his men who wonder why he was so slow to join up.

That their hostility will melt as the new man proves his mettle is about as predictable as a clear sky in Coober Pedy but the film succeeds despite its schematic form. The cast that is quickly and economically introduced may look like an assemblage of stereotypes: the terrified youngster; the stuffy British officer; the hostile, taciturn tough guy. Meanwhile one of a father and son pair says he's here to keep an eye on the other one and you know what's going to happen.

But the strong and unpretentious performances and a superbly controlled storyline - complete with tension-releasing flashbacks to Woodward's dreams of home - make it all work very well indeed. It's a modest, unassuming epic but an epic nonetheless.

Cast: Brendan Cowell, Harrison Gilbertson
Director: Jeremy Sims
Running time: 122 mins
Rating: M (violence, offensive language)
Verdict: Aussie battlers

-TimeOut