My first EVER review here as I think it's all to easy to criticise another person's art.

However, I felt compelled to here as I'm tired of seeing Australian talent & great foundations for an excellent movie ruined by outdated and overused clichés, such as police attending scene as mentioned. The continuity and flow of the story is also where our movies fail ! Why ? More like a cut & paste scrap book from a primary school student. We're far more capable and able than that.

So, after a promising start and holding of breath, sure enough, we were let down again.

Certainly not due to the acting or rather casting, just the corner cutting & lack of vision & adherence to clichés again letting us down.

Query, does the director & producers watch their work the way we viewers, who the product is made for, do ?? Can they not see the shortcomings of their work, the way we do ?

A shame, as they had all the elements there to make an excellent movie. Dare I say one to rival the US who churn this stuff out like McDonalds does with burgers.

I do thank all the actors & crew involved for their efforts. You deserved a better end result.

The Dunes is not everyone's cup of tea. It's rather slow, meandering story revolves around a writer who takes a break from journalism in Los Angeles, and returns to his home country Australia where he apparently lets out a residence that has been unpaid for by the current tennants for a period of time.

I say "apparently", because it gives the impression that this oversight of payments on the rental home is to be an important part of the story. However, it's actually not pursued at all and becomes a completely empty, dead-end element, that provides nothing more than confusion and annoyance.

But apart from this, the scenery is inviting and is the glue that keeps it all together and maintains interest most of the time, particularly in the first half of the movie, where not much happens. Things start to kick along and raise excitement levels in the second half and I didn't mind the simple script and acting, as it fits with the characters and the story, which becomes a cat and mouse type of psychological thriller of sorts, that doesn't quite build to anything memorable but is watchable nonetheless.

Ridiculous acting that is tedious and painful to watch. Unbelievable situations (especially the attending police) make this another cringeworthy film that Australia seems to be producing lately.