Eric Bana turns 57 years young on August 9, and this talented, charismatic Australian-born actor has lit up the big screen for 28 years. To celebrate Eric’s birthday, here is an engaging triple feature that showcases the man’s thespian gifts, including one role that earned him the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts’ Audience Choice Award!
Happy Birthday, Eric! Thank you for your work.
“Chopper” (2000) – Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read’s surname is apropos, because this violent Melbourne (Australia) criminal wrote his autobiography while in prison. In director Andrew Dominik’s pugilistic, and sometimes surreal, biopic, Eric Bana – in his first big-screen leading role - plays the infamous and paranoid title character, a brute who would rather violently lash out at his enemies and friends through several preemptive, shocking strikes rather than wait around for their potential assaults.
Dominik and Bana do not feature this real-life ruffian jotting down notes in a spiral notebook or typing away on a Remington typewriter during the often vicious 94-minute runtime. Set from 1978 to 1991, the director and actor showcase Chopper’s gift of gab and curse of obsessive mistrust while in jail and roaming Melbourne’s streets. The production sweats in (mostly) bleak or ordinary surroundings while Chopper feels in constant crisis.
He confides with his girlfriend, Tanya (Kate Beahan), that he should take “some time to be normal.”
Mark certainly does not engage in customary behavior as he constantly creates his troubles with fellow prisoners or several civilians in his path, as his fists, knives, or guns are his tools of choice. Chopper even sits in a chair and demands that another convict cut off portions of his body, like a demented, heinous session at the barber shop in a crucial moment that demonstrates our lead’s abnormal brain patterns. No worries, Bana allegedly gained significant weight to play Mr. Read, so it all evens out. Okay, not really. Still, this uneven but engrossing character study is worth carving out just over 90 minutes on your schedule to experience Bana’s disconcerting portrayal.
“Hanna” (2011) – Hanna (Saoirse Ronan), a slender 16-year-old, fires an arrow into an enormous deer that falls in the open snow. She stands above the four-legged mammal and utters, “I just missed your heart.”
Our young, blonde-haired lead seems usually and emotionally cold in the frigid temperatures, and the reasons for her icy persona soon become clear.
Her father, Erik (Eric Bana), suddenly approaches her and exclaims, “You’re dead.”
The two begin hand-to-hand combat in a kinetic, aggressive exercise that results in Hanna lying beside the deceased deer and wondering why she failed in her mission, even though she caught the bounty for numerous suppers in their isolated log cabin, located somewhere in Northern Europe (and filmed in Finland).
Hanna’s mother, Johanna (Vicky Krieps), has passed away, so Erik and Hanna are each other’s only family. Instead of regular chores, Dad teaches Hanna to shoot guns, speak several languages, engage in close-quarters fighting, and offer nightly lectures, like explaining the size of blue whales and exploding stars. The movie later reveals Erik’s hazardous profession, one that requires lethal force and high intellect, as he relentlessly attempts to share his extensive knowledge with Hanna in a lifetime course of the Girl Scouts on steroids, along with a hydrogen bomb or two.
Erik and Hanna prepare for some unknown mission, one against CIA agent/executive Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett), and the wily but dutiful teenager sets the hazardous pursuit in motion, where the pair split up but will eventually rendezvous in Berlin.
Ronan is a wonder as the ever-capable fighting machine and puzzle solver, as she finds herself in a massive concrete Black operations facility and then out into the world for the first time. Hanna might have more worldly knowledge than 100 MBAs, but she completely missed her childhood and simple comforts like electricity. Director Joe Wright spends more time than needed on Hanna’s journey with her new and temporary surrogate British family on holiday, but these moments attempt to showcase her unique talents and naivete.
Meanwhile, Wright also frequently volleys over to Erik’s travels. This dangerous gent, on occasion, will reveal his combative skills that would make Neo (Keanu Reeves) green with envy, in Bana’s uber-capable and calm yet relentless performance. Additionally, Erik’s talents feel even more impressive while witnessing Hanna expertly handle her pressures for hundreds of miles towards her hopeful destination in Germany.
“Hanna” might have a few misses, but this action movie beats to a genuine heart.
“The Dry” (2020) – Director Robert Connolly’s riveting noir is set in a parched small Australian town, Kiewarra, under scorching hot and bright skies. It hasn’t rained in 324 days, and Connolly and cinematographer Stephan Duscio’s camera captures the brown, cracked earth desperate for a quench of water.
However, the dry village suddenly becomes soaked with death. A family was murdered. A mother, a father, and a little boy are dead, and the deceased dad could be the suspect. The patriarch, Luke, is a former best friend of Aaron Falk (Eric Bana), a federal policeman. Aaron lives in the big city, but he travels to Kiewarra to attend the funeral.
A lethal mystery lingers in the air, but now that Aaron is home, thoughts of a fateful day – 20 years earlier - repeatedly enter his mind. A teenage girl, Ellie, was found drowned, and Luke and Aaron, teenagers as well, were thought to play a role in her demise.
Ellie was Aaron’s girlfriend.
“The Dry” is filled with this captivating present-day whodunit and the persistent agony of the painful past, and Aaron finds himself in the center of both. Some locals are pleased to see Aaron, but others are straightaway convinced he’s guilty of (or was involved with) Ellie’s passing.
Connolly and casting director Jane Norris did a crackerjack job of casting Bana as the conflicted, tortured, and professional lawman forced to face his past and push through the noise, threats, and mystery of the here and now.
As Aaron searches for clues and asks questions, Connolly and Bana introduce us to small-town residents, like Luke’s parents (Bruce Spence and Julia Blake), his old friend, Gretchen (Genevieve O’Reilly), an antagonist named Grant (Matt Nable), and a young police sergeant (Keir O’Donnell) who partners with our troubled lead. At 117 minutes, “The Dry” doesn’t splash and spray with a reckless pace. Instead, Connolly and Harry Cripps’ script, based on Jane Harper’s 2016 novel, matches the tranquil, peaceful, and wide-open environment but with an undertow of anxiety and secrets.
With a pitch-perfect cast and an absorbing mystery, this modern-day noir doesn’t wither under the blazing sun.
