At first I couldn't understand why this film had been made. Its shallow characters are indifferently acted. It's often dull and nothing about the production is better than competent. It's easy to shock people by including graphic representations of gang-rape (and with these often repeating in flashback, it's hard to avoid a suspicion of intent to titillate) but the main character is an uninteresting, negative, passive, borderline sociopath, and even the victim is unsympathetically drawn.
From other reviews I learned this was based on a real incident from 1989, so I read the Wikipedia article (entitled Murder of Leigh Leigh) which has lots of detail. It turns out that, apart from a murder taking place in that location, the film has little to do with those actual events. In particular the victim (actually a 14 year old virgin attending her first party) is misrepresented as promiscuous, and the vileness and premeditation of the boys' behaviour greatly understated. Their party-talk would have related more to getting underage girls drunk so they could rape them. In the real incident the only two over-18 men present (employed as bouncers) stated their intention to rape particular children, including Leigh. This film contributes to the horrendous culture of assigning blame to innocent victims. In its obsession with its dull and entirely fictitious main character, it ignores the serious issues raised, which occupied Australian courts and legislatures for years thereafter.
Please don't watch this horrible misrepresentation until you've read that Wikipedia article - it isn't easy to read but it has a lot more to say than this movie does. A quote from there: 'because the film lacked the "poignant and powerful narrative support of Leigh's tragedy", it was deemed by critics to be "shallow and clichéd"'. Add misguided and irresponsible and that about sums up this worthless pile of you-know-what.
From other reviews I learned this was based on a real incident from 1989, so I read the Wikipedia article (entitled Murder of Leigh Leigh) which has lots of detail. It turns out that, apart from a murder taking place in that location, the film has little to do with those actual events. In particular the victim (actually a 14 year old virgin attending her first party) is misrepresented as promiscuous, and the vileness and premeditation of the boys' behaviour greatly understated. Their party-talk would have related more to getting underage girls drunk so they could rape them. In the real incident the only two over-18 men present (employed as bouncers) stated their intention to rape particular children, including Leigh. This film contributes to the horrendous culture of assigning blame to innocent victims. In its obsession with its dull and entirely fictitious main character, it ignores the serious issues raised, which occupied Australian courts and legislatures for years thereafter.
Please don't watch this horrible misrepresentation until you've read that Wikipedia article - it isn't easy to read but it has a lot more to say than this movie does. A quote from there: 'because the film lacked the "poignant and powerful narrative support of Leigh's tragedy", it was deemed by critics to be "shallow and clichéd"'. Add misguided and irresponsible and that about sums up this worthless pile of you-know-what.