THE STOLEN
Director: Niall Johnson
Cast: Alice Eve, Emily Cororan, Gillian MacGregor, Mikaela Ruegg, Graham McTavish, Cohen Holloway, Stan Walker, Richard O’Brien, Jack Davenport, Janice Gray
Rating: (M)
★★★ (out of five)
The opening sequence of The Stolen (Rialto) did nothing to silence my doubts. You just know that when you see a refined woman simpering her way through a how-to-fire-a-gun lesson that by the end of the film she will have a tasteful smear of dirt on her face and be able to outgun any villain who dares cross her.
Charlotte (Alice Eve) is living the colonial dream as the mistress of a substantial estate, but her husband is strangely edgy for a man at the top of the heap in the peaceful South Island. All too soon bad things happen: her husband is killed and her baby taken.
The police investigation is fruitless, so when a ransom note with a photograph of her son arrives, Charlotte is galvanised into action.
She catches a train to the town the note was mailed from, then bribes her way on to the supply wagons carrying provisions and scarlet ladies through the mountain pass to Goldtown, where she believes her son is being held. She is a fish out of water, asking to be preyed upon but, of course, the desire to find her son gives her a steel that is more than corsets.
Actually a lot of this is rather fun, but whenever the film veers towards originality it is quickly herded back towards the final showdown.
- Christine Powley
