Review #1,350: 'Cargo' (2017)

Cinema has been over-saturated with zombie flicks ever since Danny Boyle made them cool again with 2002's 28 Days Later, with everyone from small-time filmmakers hoping to make it in the business to huge production companies tackling the undead, all with varying, but mostly disappointing, results. Even the master himself, George A. Romero, with a new trilogy of apocalyptic horrors failed to manage to breathe any new life into the genre he practically created. But every now and then a film will come along with something new to say, or at least offer a fresh perspective, such as Sang-ho Yeon's Train to Busan from last year, which got by on pure adrenaline and a breakneck pace, as well as placing its characters in an interesting dilemma.

Like Romero's classic Dawn of the Dead, some zombie movies stride to explore deeper concerns. While Dawn made fun of our growing consumerist society, this new effort from directors Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke, Cargo, turns its eye to white guilt and Australia's treatment of Aboriginals. The already sparsely-populated Outback may seem an odd setting considering the walking dead's real strength lies in their sheer numbers, but Cargo isn't interested in delivering a splatter-fest. Instead, the focus is on a much smaller scale, exploring this brutal terrain through the narrow eyes of a father, Andy (Martin Freeman), and his one year-old daughter. (Plot spoilers follow in the next sentence) After losing his wife, Andy is bitten early on, so he is forced to leave the comforts of the boat he and his family have been sailing on for what must be a long time, in search of a new guardian for his defenceless child.

The government has been nice enough to hand out preparation packs for the population, which include every from a manual to a countdown device to a handy suicide pack. The length of time a character takes to turn is normally decided by their role in the story or the pay packet of the actor, with anyone disposable becoming a rotting lump of gun/baseball bat/crossbow fodder in mere seconds, and those of any importance allowed enough time to say something profound or whisper goodbye to their loved ones before attempting to eat their face. Here, it's much clearer. Infection takes near enough 48 hours to completely take over, with uncontrollable fits and coughing up brown mucus all things to look forward to as your body gives way. On his trek, Andy encounters a young Aboriginal girl named Thoomi (a fantastic Simone Landers), who is on her own quest to locate her wandering dead father. Thoomi and her tribe believe that you turn when your soul is lost, but there are plenty still alive and kicking out there whose souls have long turned rotten.

The dark side of the human race is embodied by Vic (Anthony Hayes), a large, sweaty chap who scavenges whatever he can from the zombies, having executed them after luring them with human bait. Those humans are the Aboriginals, locked up in huge steel cages with fresh meat hung around them to generate a smell. One of these is Daku (the great David Gulpilil), and his tribe is out searching for him. There's a tendency to employ indigenous people to lament our lost spirituality, but here they are perhaps the only ones truly prepared for life without comforts or a large, connected society. As the rest of the world tears itself apart, they band together and welcome others. Cargo still occasionally revels in genre tropes, but carries them out effectively, and an earlier introduction for Thoomi would have done the film wonders. Overall, this is pretty stirring stuff with a strong performance by Freeman, who gets to flex his dramatic muscles for once. Cargo isn't scary because of the snarling zombies, but by playing with our concerns of our loved ones' survival once we are gone.


Directed by: Ben Howling, Yolanda Ramke
Starring: Martin Freeman, Anthony Hayes, Susie Porter, Simone Landers, David Gulpilil
Country: Australia

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie