Feb
4
Fever (1989)
February 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Craig Lahiff’s steamy modern film noir is set in a backwater outback
Aussie mining town. Paunchy local police sergeant Jack Welles observes
from a hilly desert location a drug deal going down and chooses to chase
the car with the suitcase of money over the other carrying the drugs. The
criminal’s pick-up truck rolls over during the chase and the double-dealing
cop steals the money while reporting only the accident. The nosy cop under
Jack’s command, Morris, suspects something fishy about the accident and
annoys Jack with stinging questions calling for a full investigation into
the Pakistani driver’s death. Arriving home early, a red-faced and sweaty
Jack catches the town’s handsome young mining engineer Jeff shtuping from
behind his much younger lovely slim wife Leanne. The cuckolded man confronts
the much younger stud, and after a tussle Jeff throws a vase which knocks
the cop cold. Thinking him dead, the couple conspire to bury the cop in
a mining shaft. But it turns out Jack is very much alive and escapes. He’s
still very much in love with his attractive but unfaithful wife, even if
he realizes she does not love him, and pursues her as she catches a train
out of town with her shallow lover and the suitcase of money. Unknown to
Jack the cunning Morris has also boarded the train, and he pulls a gun
on the superior officer when he catches him with the money in a storage
room. The tale takes off from that point, as these four unpleasant characters
act out their suppressed desires and undergo a series of bloody incidents
until only one is standing to have the last laugh.
The twisty plot, using minimal dialogue, effectively conveys how
desperate all these miserable characters are for some spark in their dull
lives. The money is the temptation that makes them chase a false means
to happiness.