Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Goldstone Blu-ray Movie Review

Further on down Mystery Road.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 10, 2018

The key art for Goldstone makes the film look like many a generic (and, frankly, forgettable) straight to video action adventure release, when it’s actually a rather thoughtful and substantial follow up to a film I reviewed on Blu-ray several years ago, Mystery Road. In fact, without seeming to shamelessly shill too much, I might suggest that those interested in Goldstone take a few minutes to read the Mystery Road Blu-ray review, since it will give a bit of background on both filmmaker (and just about everything else — more about that later) Ivan Sens and the fascinating character of Jay Swan (portrayed by Aaron Pedersen), who is, much as with the previous film, a rather unusual cop on a rather unusual mission which takes him into the rugged Australian outback where he’s confronted (once again) by rampant corruption and prostitution, with this film perhaps arguably substituting gold mining for Mystery Road’s drug smuggling angle. The film actually begins with another cop, local constable Josh Waters (Alex Russell), who tries to maintain order in the largely isolated environment of Goldstone, a “town” (if it can even be called that) that has sprung up around a native enclave that is also next to a huge mining operation. Josh pulls over Jay on an otherwise deserted highway, and it’s apparent that Jay is drunk enough that he can’t even respond to questions. Josh brings him back to the makeshift jail (just about all the buildings seen in the film are so-called "double wides" or the equivalent) to let him sleep it off, but he does enough investigating of Jay’s personal effects to let him know that Jay is a detective himself.

In what is perhaps the first indication of “how things work” in Goldstone, Josh goes to the local diner to meet Goldstone’s mayor Maureen (Jacki Weaver), who informs Josh the local mine may be expanding, but they need native (or as she calls it “black man”) approval first. Maureen more or less enlists Josh to keep his eyes and ears open in case there are naysayers or, even worse, violence that erupts. She offers him a kind of bundt cake looking thing that she calls a pie as a little inducement. Josh also shares the fact that he’s hauled in a “black” (meaning Aborigine) detective, who’s sleeping it off in the nearby cell, something which seems to worry Maureen.

If the pie and/or cake that Maureen proffers isn’t enough of an outright bribe, when Josh visits mine supervisor Johnny (David Wenham), Johnny mentions the upcoming planned expansion and hauls out a stack of cash which he pushes toward Josh. Josh doesn’t take him up on this unspoken offer, but there’s a subtext that Josh has been a willing participant in “the way things work” for quite some time in and around Goldstone. Meanwhile, Jay has sobered up and let Josh know that he’s on the hunt for a missing girl, something that ultimately leads Jay into a restricted area in the mining operation where he spies a bunch of girls being hustled from a plane to a nearby van. In what is perhaps a slight change of perspective that indicates something akin to an omniscient narrator, and which to my personal taste could have either been entirely omitted or arguably more organically handled from one of the detectives' points of view, the scene shifts to the van, where a harridan elderly woman makes it clear she’s basically pimping these women, all of whom evidently have private debts that need repaying.

The whole missing person aspect is actually kind of shunted off to the side, with the growing relationship between Josh and Jay taking center stage, and with Josh’s need to make a decision as to whether he’s a “white hat” or “black hat” weighing on the proceedings as well. Josh ends up investigating the prostitution angle, which brings him in contact with a beautiful young woman named Mei (Michelle Lim Davidson), and a more formulaic film probably would have developed an overt romantic angle with these two. Instead, Goldstone offers hint of a halting involvement, but really not much more.

The film also follows Jay’s attempts to reconnect with his roots, in a manner of speaking, including courtesy of a relationship with local Aborigine Jimmy (David Gulpilil). It’s actually in this relationship that the film develops some considerable emotional heft, and a rather devastating development part way through the film involving Jimmy is one of the film’s most unforgettable elements. The whole cast is excellent for the most part, even if the admittedly enjoyable Weaver tends to lapse over into cartoon villain(ess) territory.

Goldstone continues a really interesting filmography for Sen, who also served as this film’s director, writer, editor, composer and director of photography (I wasn’t paying close attention during closing credits, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see his name under “craft services” as well). Sen is a highly accomplished tale spinner, and he fills this film with the same sort of “Fordian” cutaways to the amazing locations on display that I mentioned he did in Mystery Road. It seems like a more organic approach in this film, at least to me, with a really almost atavistic aspect entering the quest for a “tribal” connection that Jay seems to be on.

Goldstone Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Goldstone is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lightyear Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists the Red Epic as having digitally captured the imagery, and I'm assuming this was finished at a 2K DI (as always, if anyone can refer me to authoritative data to the contrary, I'll happily update this review). This is a pretty stunning looking film from a number angles, and the Blu-ray presentation is consistently impressive. Wide vistas still offer abundant detail levels along with excellent depth of field, and close-ups offers similarly excellent levels of fine detail. The palette looks natural, often quite dusty and kind of tending toward ochre or beige tones, but on occasion popping with pretty surprising vividness, as in some close-ups of some of the floral prints the Mayor wears. There are a couple of relatively murky scenes that take place in various houses (and or trailers, and, no, I'm not kidding) of ill repute, where garish lighting conditions and perhaps slightly anemic contrast tend to give things a kind of hazy appearance without much shadow detail.

Goldstone Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Goldstone features an expressive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that delivers good immersion in the many outdoor scenes, even if some of the ambient environmental sounds tend to be, like the landscape itself, rather sparse. The one Sen contribution that I wasn't completely wowed by is his score, which tries to be elegiac, with massed strings and occasional piano, but which never (for me, anyway) really paid many emotional dividends. Fidelity is fine throughout, with no issues involving distortion or other damage. While dialogue is generally cleanly delivered, Gulpilil in particular can be a little hard to decipher at times, and unfortunately this release does not contain subtitles.

Goldstone Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

All of the following brief supplements focus on elements which are easily identifiable from the featurettes' titles, with most of them featuring interviews with the cast and crew, and for an object lesson in what shooting a movie in an environment like this must be like, pay attention to how often bugs land on the participants' faces, and how stoically most of them react to the insects.

• Detective Jay Swan (1080p; 2:07)


• Alex Russell as "Josh Waters" (1080p; 1:34)


• Jacki Weaver as "The Mayor" (1080p; 1:27)


• Ivan Sen (Writer/Director/Editor/Composer/DOP (1080p; 1:45)


• The Corruption of Goldstone (1080p; 1:57)


• The Indigenous People of Australia (1080p; 2:01)


• Trailer One (1080p; 1:25)


• Trailer Two (1080p; 1:56)

Goldstone Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mystery Road and Goldstone are both impressive achievements, but I have to say for me personally Goldstone really was a more involving experience, even if a couple of Sen's narrative choices might have been handled more artfully. The cast is really excellent, and the story is actually more about the interrelationship between various "tribes" (for want of a better term) than it is about anyone missing or forced into a human trafficking situation. Technical merits are solid, and Goldstone comes Recommended.