Beneath Hill 60 (2010) plays like a classic Hollywood war film with an Aussie twist. Jeremy Hartley Sim's First World War epic offers few surprises, yet it's a compelling watch.Beneath Hill 60 draws on the true story of Oliver Woodward (Brendan Cowell), mining engineer-turned-sapper for the BEF. His team earns brass attention for taking out a German pillbox. General Lambert (John Scott) assigns Woodward the task of destroying Hill 60 - a key German position in Flanders. Woodward and his team discover their task requires more explosives than ever before used in a mining operation. And German engineers determine to sniff them out.
World War I films remain relatively rare, so Beneath Hill 60 is a novelty in that regard. Otherwise, Sims and writer David Roach mine familiar conventions. There's a standard-issue motley crew, from the bumbling nebbish (Gyton Grantley) to the token Aborigine (Mark Coles Smith). There are idyllic prewar flashbacks, with Woodward courting pretty young Marjorie (Bella Heathcote). More specifically, Hill recycles themes of Australian comradeship and Anglophobia from Gallipoli - though the Aussies bond with enlisted Brits through rugby.
If Beneath Hill 60 doesn't break any molds, it's a solid show. Sims makes an effective contrast between pastoral Queensland with gloomy, grimy Belgium (other parts of Queensland?), marred only by obvious computer effects. This is a decidedly dirty war film; its pervasive mud and graphic violence contrast with sanitized shows like War Horse - more so underground, where a cave-in, gas leak or German counterminer lurks round the corner. Hill compensates for little action with absorbing suspense: Woodward's nighttime raid through No Man's Land is an unbearable nail-biter.
Brendan Cowell dominates the film, quietly intense with a sarcastic edge. His platoon mates are mostly interchangeable; Alan Dukes, Gyton Grantley and Mark Coles Smith get glimmers of personality, but remain ciphers. Chris Haywood and John Scott are Blimpish Brit caricatures; Kenneth Spitieri and Marcus Costello play token Germans similarly broadly. Bella Heathcote, effortlessly charming, renders the romantic interludes poignant instead of tedious.
Beneath Hill 60 isn't the most original or inventive movie. Yet for all its predictability, there's still skilled storytelling and impressive spectacle to commend it. With filmmakers ever-obsessed with the Second World War, more Great War pictures are always welcome.
