Film In Preview

The Stamford Plaza in Brisbane looks like every other posh hotel; clean and full of expensive furniture - a world away from the South Australian Outback; rugged, brown and beautiful - the setting for Hugo Weaving's newest film The Last Ride. But it's precisely where we catch up with Mr Weaving and the film's director, Glendyn Ivans, to talk about their first work together.

“As soon as I left Adelaide and was about thirty kays out, I was like - ‘It's going to be here’,” starts off the bearded Ivans about his choice of locations. “Everything I was used to dealing with was different. So it (the location) felt like a fresh palette.”

The locations were chosen well to match the story - that of a father, Kev, fleeing the consequences of his own actions, with son Chook, who he feels the need to bond with and harden up while he still can.

“The thing about this script is it is basically about the relationship between father and son - which is at the heart of the film and specifically about Kev; he is a very troubled man,” explains Ivans.

Describing the character of Kev as a troubled man is an understatement; a ratbag would be closer to the mark - a role which Weaving prepared for by watching interviews of similarly 'troubled men' that Ivans had given him.

“Without going too far into it, it was through my connections with outlaw motorcycle gangs that I met a lot of these people,” says Ivans of the preparations for the film. “There was one guy that really stood out - he said that he was going to prison for a few months; and he said that it was just a sleep, just a couple of books, and that was the guy that really gave us a lot to use for Kev.”

Such shifting moods are most apparent in Kev’s relationship with his son Chook; played by first timer Tom Russell.

“He feels like he has to harden Chook up; like he is acting in a way that he thinks a father should act towards his son,” says Weaving. “And Tom was great on the film,” interjects Ivans. “He was just a regular kid - he would get tired and hungry but he was also okay with that.”

Finishing off each other's sentences? I guess a couple of months on the road in the middle of nowhere will do that to the best of us.

‘The Last Ride’ is in Cinemas July 2 through Madman Entertainment.