Stream It Or Skip It: ‘High Ground’ on Hulu, an Ambitious Kangaroo Western in Which Two Men Are Caught Between Warring Peoples

While watching High Ground — now on Hulu — please set aside the lousy logic and lousy dialogue of an iconically lousy moment from a lousy Star Wars prequel, because this almost-Kangaroo Western boasts a legitimate, thought-provoking metaphor via that title. Sure, “high ground” is a tactical advantage in war, an idea that director Stephen Johnson clearly illustrates in the film. But he’s ultimately more interested in the concept of moral high ground, which comprises the heart of the story.

HIGH GROUND: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s 1919. Two Aborigine men quietly stalk a wallaby, but a boy loudly hurls his spear and scares it away. He’s lectured by his father and given a lesson in silent hunting by his uncle. They return to their peaceful village, but it won’t stay that way for long — white men, police pursuing bandits, arrive on the scene, and as these situations tend to go, the men with guns play out a metaphor for genocidal colonialism against the indigenous folk. It’s a vile massacre, incited by Eddy (Callan Mulvey) and ended by Travis (Simon Baker). It puts the two men at odds despite their long partnership; back in the war, Eddy was the spotter and Travis was the sniper. The lone survivor is Gutjuk, the same kid who just got the hunting lesson. Travis scoops him up and drops him off at the missionary camp.

Twelve years pass. Gutjuk, now known as Tommy (Jacob Junior Nayinggul), wears the clothes of the white man. Missionary sister Claire (Caren Pistorius) took him under her wing. Eddy is still a cop. Travis is not. Gutjuk’s uncle Baywara (Sean Mununggurr) was left for dead those dozen years ago, but he survived and is making his presence known by staging guerrilla attacks on white settlements. Police chief Moran (Jack Thompson) arrives with Eddy to track down Baywara and his cohorts, and I don’t think they have it in mind to arrest anybody. Let’s illustrate the dynamic: Travis and two Aborigine friends successfully hunted a crocodile. Moran wants a photo of them with their kill, and he makes the Black men squat on the ground so the white man stands above them. (With the Aussie accent, “Moran” sounds like “moron.” I refuse to accept this as coincidence.)

Moran and Eddy pressure the reluctant Travis and Gutjuk to find Baywara, because they’re the closest thing to insiders with the Aborigines. Gutjuk is torn between loyalty to his uncle, his blood, and the mother-son relationship he has with Claire; he absolutely knows who slaughtered his family. Travis teaches Gutjuk how to shoot a rifle — and how to use its scope from a high angle. They’re two men caught between cultures. But this is a country where one cannot be a member of two tribes. Lines must be drawn. Laws must be followed — laws of the ruling class, mind you. At least this is what men like Moran assert. Do stories like this ever end well?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale, another morally fraught Bush Western about revenge and race, comes immediately to mind.

Performance Worth Watching: Nayinggul shows considerable screen presence in a central role that lacks some nuance on the page. He shares a terrific moment with Esmerelda Marimowa — playing a female warrior in Baywara’s posse — that speaks volumes with minimal dialogue, and carries significant emotional weight in a film that could use more such scenes.

Memorable Dialogue: Baker gets the big line: “When you’ve got the high ground, you control everything.”

Sex and Skin: None, although there’s one scene of attempted sexual assault.

Our Take: “I reckon I’d be better off shootin’ the two of you right now,” Travis quips to Eddy and Moran upon their arrival. It sounds like fighting words, a line cribbed from a Wild West shoot-’em-up, but High Ground acts against the expectations we’d ascribe to its dusty setting and revenge-driven plot. Johnson and screenwriter Chris Antastassiades have bigger ideas to convey, about colonialism and violence, with healthy doses of situational irony. The film’s early scenes of outright slaughter are disturbing enough that we see Baywara’s burning of a white church to be utterly justified.

So provocation is one of the film’s key tools, all the more powerful for its sparing use. (More prevalent is its lush cinematography, which frequently exhibits lush natural beauty — and its many lurking dangers, from circling hawks to swarming ants.) But it tends to emphasize message over fullness of character. Baker, Nayinggul, Pistorius and Marimowa appear ripe and ready to explore the nuance of their characters, but the screenplay hems them into loose stereotypes; they do tend to make the most of their moments of dialogue-free stillness, which keeps us invested in the story at the same time illustrating untapped potential. Similarly, Mulvey and Thompson are asked to little more than keep their characters’ sneering racism at low boil.

It’s interesting how High Ground lists a “senior cultural advisor” high in its credits, implying a desire to represent Aboriginal culture authentically. Johnson and Anastassiades give equal narrative time to their white and Black characters, a noble goal for sure, but also one that implies both-sidesism. The film would function better without such overt calculations; it seems to fear allowing its characters to fully explore their humanity, because it would be inevitably complicated and untidy. Somewhere in High Ground is a stronger movie about moral muddles and tested loyalty, how violence begets violence. It’s as if the title was determined and the film formed around it — if it had started at ground level, its moral and political ideas may have organically sprung from the earth.

Our Call: STREAM IT. High Ground is far from perfect. But it also isn’t content to adhere to genre trappings; its thematic ambition and visual dynamic makes it worth a watch.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Watch High Ground on Hulu