Review by Jon Donnis
Director John V. Soto has started to build a decent reputation for himself, and his latest film Avarice, has just been released, in which he hopes will grow his reputation even more.
The film starts off with a break in and a murder of a couple in their home. Straight away we know who the bad guys are.
Soon after we are introduced to Gillian Alexy who plays Kate Matthews, a gifted archer in this Australian thriller, she is facing typical family and home problems, a moody teenager and a husband who works too much. Unfortunately, the stress of these problems gets in her head while performing in an archery contest, she misses an easy shot and comes second in the tournament to long-time rival.
The family go off on vacation, but during the vacation, Kate's husband Ash (Luke Ford) takes a call from the office, who are looking for a colleague of his, of course this further annoys Kate.
They arrive at their vacation house, and settle in.
Before you know it, those bad guys we saw earlier, Reed (Alexandra Nell) and Kane (Ryan Panizza) have kidnapped Ash and tied up Kate and her daughter. They want to use Ash and his knowledge of the banking industry to steal money for them, $10 million to be exact. And of course, he has just 3 hours to do it.
What follows is a pretty straight forward home invasion, abduction, kidnaping type film. We mainly follow the Kate Matthews character, as she escapes her bonds and tries to escape, eventually getting to use her archery skills to take out the bad guys and save the day.
Gillian Alexy is very believable as Kate Matthews, and you will find yourself cheering her on. There are a few twists and turns here and there, but everything is quite predictable, although that is not necessarily a bad thing if the movie is good.
The Good
Perfect run time of 84 minutes, means this is an easy to watch thriller. Gillian Alexy is the stand out performance here, although I did quite like Alexandra Nell as Reed, one of the main baddies. She is also very convincing in her role. Although the ending is predictable, it is satisfying, and the right people get taken care of.
The Bad
Takes way too long for the Kate character to get her hands on the bow and arrow, and if the film had a higher certificate, we could have perhaps seen some more fun kills.
Overall
A perfectly watchable Australian Thriller. You may only watch it once, but you will enjoy it. Easy to consume, decent characters, a simple plot and short run time. I liked it.
I score Avarice (2022) a fair 7.5/10
Out now on VOD and Apple TV at https://apple.co/3gDAaTP
