Force of Nature: The Dry 2, 2024.
Written and Directed by Robert Connolly.
Starring Eric Bana, Anna Torv, Deborra-Lee Furness, Robin McLeavy, Sisi Stringer, Lucy Ansell, Jacqueline McKenzie, Jeremy Lindsay Taylor, Richard Roxburgh, Tony Briggs, Kenneth Radley, Ash Ricardo, Ingrid Torelli, Matilda May Pawsey, and Archie Thomson.
SYNOPSIS:
Five women participate in a hiking retreat but only four come out the other side. Federal agents Aaron Falk and Carmen Cooper head into the mountains hoping to find their informant still alive.
Following the template set in the first film, returning writer/director Robert Connolly’s Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (once again based on a novel by Jane Harper) contains a present-day mystery with some interrupting flashbacks showcasing a different kind of secret related to that and the personal life of Eric Bana’s federal agent Aaron Falk. Admittedly, there are diminishing returns, but Eric Bana continues to excel in the role, and the twists throughout the investigation are compelling enough.
Technically, Force of Nature: The Dry 2 throws a third dynamic into the mix, as the Giralang rainforest, where only four of five women hiking and camping together on a company retreat to hone their teamwork skills return, is also home to a serial killer who once terrorized the area. Local authorities see this as an opportunity to return to that past and possibly bring some closure to the affected families, less concerned with rescuing the lost woman. Meanwhile, Falk is living in the present, weighing his morality and level of fault in the incident, considering that the missing woman is an informant he had been working with and perhaps pressuring too hard for information to bring down the criminal company CEO.
The film follows Falk, interviewing the remaining women and discovering everything from sibling rivalries, rusty guides, a leader who might have been on to the informant, and the past transgressions that qualified each individual for the retreat. These revealing conversations are set against alluring waterfall backdrops, luscious forests, and perilous cliffs, not to mention the dangerous Australian spider wildlife. The point is that even if this second installment based on the book trilogy contains a less interesting mystery while failing to generate the suspense and momentum of the previous adaptation, it’s generally always pleasing to look at alongside competently performed.
When Falk is not grilling the women on how everything went wrong and how they lost contact with Anna Torv’s Alice, the flashbacks this time take us back to his childhood in the same rain forest, frantically searching for his mother alongside his father. Including another personal angle allows for an additional layer to Eric Bana’s weathered, contemplative turn as an agent wondering if he is making the right choices, working opposite a partner so cheerful about getting results she hardly entertains the question.
However, it is mostly up to the women (an ensemble also consisting of Deborra-Lee Furness, Robin McLeavy, Sisi Stringer, and Lucy Ansell) to lift the proceedings, as sizable chunks are dedicated to them struggling as a unit and failing to get back on the correct path. Alice is also a bully, which can be for reasons ranging from her personality to the nervous weight of staying undercover and some drama involving her daughter taking after that bullying, having hurt one of her coworker’s daughters. For the most part, their performances are solid, but the material simply isn’t as thrilling as the previous story, even if there is enough characterization to make this narrative work.
One could argue that Force of Nature: The Dry 2 was slightly too dry, but again, this mystery is still compulsively watchable and benefits from a strong leading turn from Eric Bana and more than enough elements tossed into the mix to keep the outcome relatively unpredictable. The film seems to be trying to get at messages regarding modern-day policing, living in the past versus trying to save someone in the present day, and mother nature taking no prisoners, meandering its way to those worthwhile points. Still, much like that waterfall in the background, there is enough here to quench a dramatic, mystery thirst.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
