Last Train To Freo

The new Australian film ‘Last Train to Freo’ has had quite a journey. Back in 1999 Reg Cribb wrote a short play titled ‘The Return’, directed by Jeremy Sims, which had a very successful season at Sydney’s Stables theatre. In 2000 the playwright and director presented a successful full length version of the play for the Perth Theatre Company. The talented duo then set about making a full length feature film out of the work, which has now come to fruition with ‘The Last Train To Freo’ opening around Australia in September. The film represents popular actor Jeremy Sims’s debut as a film director.

‘Last Train To Freo’ starts at midnight, on a hot summer’s night, with two ex cons, the Tall Thug (Steve Le Marquand) and Trev (Tom Budge), getting on the last train to Fremantle. Bored, restless and looking for trouble, they start to poke fun at their mind numbing existence. Then a beautiful young law student Lisa (Gigi Edgley) steps onto the train- not knowing that the train guards are on strike, and its time for the boys to create some trouble. Further down the line, at Perth Central station, two new passengers. Maureen (Gillian Jones) and Simon (Glenn Hazeldine) get on board. The lives of the five train passengers are forever changed by the time the train terminates at Fremantle.

I came out of ‘Last Train to Freo’ thinking gosh that was a bold, interesting film but feeling that it just didn’t come off. I loved the way the film tried to change audience’s expectations. Just when the audience is getting in a comfortable mind-set thinking they’re just watching another creepy, claustrophobic film about a couple of thugs throwing their weight around, and tormenting a beautiful young woman, the film goes in different tangents and adds new layers. That is exciting! But then, it felt like the filmmakers just got a bit too carried away with the different twists that they incorporated, and though theoretically everything tied up well in the ending, the truth in the work seemed to get lost on the way.

Still, though ‘Last Train To Freo’ doesn’t reach great heights, the film is worth watching. There was a buzz about the film’s level of energy and commitment. Sims’s first stab at directing was impressive, his creative team supported him well, and the cast played their hearts out…Steve Le Marquand’s edgy, dangerous portrayal as the Tall Thug, Tom Budge as his less charismatic sidekick Trev, Gigi Edgley playing Lisa like an exposed nerve, Gillian Jones’s tough worldliness as Maureen, and Glenn Hazeldine’s simmering rage as Simon.