Heaven's Burning

It takes a while for this road movie thrillerto take off, as the director labours through an opening section which lays out how Japanese honeymooner Midori (Kudoh) happens to find herself on the run (and loving it), chased by bank robbers and her 'disgraced' ex-husband, with only a hot-rodder (Crowe) as reluctant helpmate. In a film of blunt genre strokes, Kudoh's transition to kooky 'liberated' chick is as rudimentarily sketched as the reactions to her foreignness are awkwardly played out. Nevertheless, director Lahiff manages to balance the action and human interest, using trans-port truck metal and the horizontal swaths of the Australian landscape to emulate the sweep and gleam of the American prototype, and undercutting the machismo through the sympathetic playing of Kudoh and, especially, Crowe.