ThiefHott Too much of everything

SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

craig-hopton The movie had a really good concept. It's about race division in Australia, but more importantly it's an exploration of how a small, innocent decision (not immediately reporting a murdered body) can turn out to look malicious and divisive in hindsight, and the repercussions this can cause.My problem with this Jindabyne is that these themes were kind of taken over by the focus on the lead female character Claire and her mental and emotional issues, which didn't really work for me.There's also a very bizarre subplot where the movie shows you the movements of the murderer but this never seems to lead to anything. It creates an air of menace at first but then just becomes rather pointless. The police don't seem to have any leads to follow and so the opportunity of this becoming an engaging crime-detective drama comes to nothing.I may have just missed the point of this movie but it didn't do it for me.

werefox08 The acting of Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney (who play a married couple) is extremely good. The actual film is O.K., but one has to ask why it did so poorly...particularly in America. The answer (I believe) is the case of the missing scene. When four men find a young ladies dead body during a fishing expedition, they just go ahead with their fishing. No communication, no debate about what would be the correct course of action--nothing.! It is true however, that some Aussie "blokes" would just carry on with their watery activity. Whatever--I am sure this--and some other typically Aussie bloke activities may have confused the global audience. Anyway this movie has a spooky atmosphere from start to finish--like there is some impending doom on the horizon. It has the power to unsettle the viewer. There are some rather ridiculous interactions between Aboriginals and whites, but generally its an effective drama / murder story.

justincward Apparently 'Jindabyne' is the story of how the monumentally stupid behavior of four Australian good buddies (not reporting the discovery of a body until they've finished fishing, and then letting on that they did so) brings the racial conflicts of an Australian town and emotional conflicts of its families to the surface.The problem with the film is that not one of the characters is written as anything but a stereotype. Not a single one of them has a need that the audience can understand - you're left to assume their motivation from the cliché they are drawn from. It's sheer bad writing - each main character has to have some sort of major drama going on, because their characters are so thin. That's melodrama, and the cast chew the Australian scenery like they haven't eaten in a week, and the full-on ethnic wailing on the soundtrack gets old very quickly.The consequence of having so many threads of melodrama is that not one of them is resolved. The movie tries to cover up its lack of proper characterization by resorting to an unnecessary and unresolved serial killer plot, and a paper-thin small-town racism plot.Nobody on the crew thought to mention that if you find a dead body in a creek, you might not feel like eating the fish you pull out of there. Bad writing and sloppy film-making.

paul2001sw-1 One hopes one will not do anything truly evil in one's life; but supposing you (or someone you love) did something not exactly evil, but inexcusable - and was found out. This is the premise of Jinbadyne, and we see how the fall out of such a happening in an Australian community weakens already frail relationships and exposing tensions which are founded on a racism that, however unpleasant, is based (in both directions) on an irreconcilable sense of identity. You realise this film is good when its protagonists deliver stunning lines that seem totally natural, because you believe in their characters; also in the subtle way it works as a coolly unnerving thriller: this element of the movie is mostly played down against the personal drama so that when it is occasionally allowed to surface, it really shocks. That the villain of the piece is a sort of small town hero adds to the poignancy. If I was to call this film thoughtful, this might be a disservice: not because it isn't, but because reality bites harder than fantasy, and this is a gripping story as well as a human one.