Rise

Synopsis: A young Gold Coast nurse, Will McIntyre (Nathan Wilson) is convicted of rape after a one night stand.  Sentenced to six years in a maximum security jail he is befriended by career criminal and hardman, Jimmy Cove (Martin Sacks), and assigned to look after Fung Poi (Marty Rhone) who is permanently wheelchair-bound. These relationships help him survive prison for nearly two years as meanwhile he tries to establish his innocence.

Rise is writer-director-producer Mack Lindon’s own real life story so needless to say it is a project close to his heart.  His experiences were the basis for a short film, "Rise Of The Underdog", which won the ‘Best Trailer’ category at the Hollyshorts Film Festival in Los Angeles, 2013, an endorsement which helped him raise the money to make this, his debut feature.

Whilst one recognizes the personal significance of the project as well as the limitations of its relatively small budget (approximately $500,000), by taking on directorial duties, Lindon has done himself no favours. Perhaps an experienced director could have molded the material into a compelling dramatic form but as helmed by Lindon, the shortcomings of the production - a too-ready reliance on the well-worn genre conventions, an equally formulaic script with often heavy-handed dialogue, and a cast of largely unseasoned actors - overwhelm the subject-matter.  

In the lead, newcomer Nathan Wilson is an engaging presence and it is easy to accept his character's innocence (whether may have happened in real life) but he is not adept with a role that requires him to be onscreen most of the time and to embody a wide gamut of emotions. In contrast, Martin Sacks, who has had a long career in television is compelling as Will’s protector and gives us a taste of what the film might have been. The prison scenes were clearly shot on location and seemingly with real inmates and this give the film a good measure of credibility. Unfortunately the trial and associated logistical scenes are far less successful.

Of course it is easy to be wise in hindsight but in an ideal world Lindon, as either producer or director, would have ripped into the script and come up with something filmable for less money, eliminating a lot of the descriptive material to do with prison life with which we are well familiar in any case from similar films and so freeing up resources to employ a more experienced cast, or, at very least, more rehearsal time and/or retakes. Some of the scenes should never have been let through to the keeper

Re-cut and pruned of 15 minutes Rise might make a decent tele-drama. This is by no means an insult, for the story is eminently suited to such a format whose imposed discontinuities would distract from those of the film itself .  As a feature film however it simply cannot bear the weighty expectations of a big screen presentation.

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