Initiation (1987) User Reviews

Some pretty pictures

[SusanAdebisi · 6/10 · 26 November 2006]

Danny Is a generally annoying American kid arriving In Oz to re-find his absent old man (a steroetyped bloke), by the end he's become a man having endured his "Initiation" and everything ends bonza. The basic narrative Is fine even If signposted for the hard of thinking(me), all the characters play out exactly as they look they would. Rarely do you believe this Is a not a made for TV representation of Australia although much of the scenery particularly during the later part Is outstanding. The good bits: His old mans line of work Is a great career and the Kulu guy Is oddly endearing with a seriously Infectious cackle.

Not bad

You do what you have to do

[wanner1 · 7/10 · 27 November 2005]

This movie has beautiful scenery of the mountains in Australia. It is a story about a person who finds the inner strength to save his father after an accident and getting stranded and lost. I love the part where he has hallucinations and in a cave. It gets a bit weird in places but all in all is a good movie. It shows that you can do whatever you have to do to get done what needs to be done. The native aborigine are portrayed in a mysterious way. They have some strange rituals that would have been more interesting if we found out more of what they were. The previous review is of a different movie by the same name. Too bad the reviewer didn't pay better attention.

Routine thriller with stunning scenery and animals

[bikerpaul68 · 7/10 · 22 February 2024]

The story is simple: Danny Molloy is brought up in New York by his mother and after her death flies to Adelaide to visit his father in a South Australia country town. His Dad Nat does crop-dusting work with a two-seater plane, which he also uses to do a bit of drug dealing on the side. Half-way through the film the plane crashes in the remote bush. Danny sets off on foot through the wilds of Southern Australia and the Blue Mountains and finds an abandoned entrance to the Jenolan Caves, from where he mounts a helicopter rescue to fetch his Dad, who has been lying on the side of a cliff for a couple of weeks without food or water.

Australian audiences will probably shake their heads over the improbability of it all, the portrayal of the aboriginals, and the usual shots of exotic Australian wildlife. The film will doubtless remain a footnote in the history of cinema, but it's entertaining enough. Rodney Harvey, who plays Danny, went on to play Sodapop Curtis in "The Outsiders" and a biker in the first episode of "Twin Peaks", before dying of a drug overdose at the age of 31.

Very good movie

[TBelton1 · 10/10 · 4 September 2003]

I thought the movie was excellent, certainly one of the late Rodney Harvey's best performances, as the troubled son who learns a few big lessons. This movie was (and still is I suppose) very hard to find in video stores, and is available on and off again thru online stores. If you can find a copy though, don't hesitate to get it, because this really is a good movie.

decent

[mattkratz · 8/10 · 13 May 2018]

This was a decent movie-kind of like Crocodile Dundee in reverse and as a drama. An American kid arrives in Australia after the death of his mother to find his father-and finds that the father is messed up with drug dealers. The kid also interacts with an Aborigine mystic and goes on a bit of a Dreamtime of his own when his father is bitten on an airplane flight and the plane crashes in the wilderness.

I loved the "wandering the wilderness" scenes, the parts with his newfound family, the closeup of the Southern Cross, and the shots of the animals. This wasn't too bad a movie.

** 1/2 out of ****