Australia - Movie Review

Jackman and Nicole Kidman in ''Australia.'
20th Century Fox
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
PG-13 for some violence


The Story
Kidman stars as Sarah Ashley, an uppercrust Brit who believes her husband's cheating on her. After he refuses to return home from tending to their business interests down under, Sarah packs up dozens of bags and hightails it to Australia. Her goal: find out who he's cheating with and get him to sell off their land and go back to England.
Sarah's plans abruptly change when she reaches their cattle ranch only to find out her husband's been killed. An Aboriginal medicine man has been named as the culprit, but Sarah soon catches on to the fact there's much more going on at the ranch than meets the eye. Her husband's right hand man, Neil Fletcher (David Wenham), is a nasty fellow who treats the locals worse than cows and wouldn't know the truth if it jumped up and slapped him in the face. Sarah fires Neil, an act which elevates her standing in the eyes of all the hired help on the ranch, including a young part-Aborigine boy, Nullah (Brandon Walters), who forms a special bond with Sarah.


Without Neil, Sarah needs someone who can drive her cattle to market. Sarah has to sell off her cattle to the military in order to keep the ranch afloat and to stave off an offer to buy the place from King Carney (Bryan Brown), an offer her husband rejected outright. King Carney's the biggest cattle baron on the continent and he desperately wants her piece of land. And Neil, who happens to be his son-in-law, is willing to do just about anything to help King Carney take over the strategically located property. Sarah hires the very reluctant, extremely good-looking Drover (Hugh Jackman) to lead the cattle through treacherous terrain. Drover, his occupation and the only name he goes by, isn't a fan of King Carney or Neil. He's not really a fan of Sarah's either, but they're forced together due to their mutual dislike of the competition. Of course, being that this is a romantic epic, they soon discover there's an attraction between them that can't be denied.