The Tracker
ArtMattan Productions | Release Date: January 16, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
71
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
3
Negative:
1

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
VarietyDavid Stratton
Think of an Anthony Mann Western made by an experimental film director and you get an indication of the challenging components of The Tracker, the story of a manhunt that is politically sensitive because of its depiction of atrocities perpetrated on aboriginals by a fanatical white cop. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
The best Australian feature I've seen in years. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The Tracker is one of those rare films that deserves to be called haunting. It tells the sort of story we might find in an action Western, but transforms it into a fable or parable. Read full review
80
Film ThreatEmma Westwood
The film is a stunning piece of visual poetry that will, hopefully, be remembered as one of the most important stories to be told in Australia’s film history. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterRichard James Havis
Has the punch of a good Western with a clean and direct script plus an adventurous use of songs and folk paintings. Read full review
80
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Australian "Westerns" occur. An exceptional one is The Tracker, which has the shape of an offbeat American Western and seems at first a sort of Down Under copy. But it develops characters and relationships that are indigenous. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyErnest Hardy
None of Tracker's near-fatal missteps in execution or conception, however, prevents this superbly acted film, in the end, from becoming an engrossing study of race and history in Australia, or making the powerful indictment it intends to make. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKevin Crust
Redeemed by its adherence to a simple yet distinctive approach to storytelling and its uniformly strong acting. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
A third aspect of The Tracker is less successful. In a badly calculated move, Mr. de Heer and singer Graham Tardif fill the soundtrack with songs full of clichés, platitudes, and truisms. Read full review
75
New York PostMegan Lehmann
Dialogue is sparse in this leisurely paced chase; instead, the bluesy vocals of indigenous singer Archie Roach -- singing de Heer's lyrics -- are layered over the action as a kind of musical narration. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
Much of The Tracker, a blunt morality tale about Australian racism, is heavy going. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen Holden
These stylized images by the Australian artist Peter Coad create an aesthetic distance from the cruelty, lending the atrocities the stature of events in a historical mural that freezes the past into an eternal present. Read full review
60
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
A decent little exercise in nativist outrage, Rolf de Heer's The Tracker, with its dynamic between indigene and colonial oppressor, could've easily been a western. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The film's bleakly inevitable ending packs a wallop and its hauntingly desolate images linger long after the story is told. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
Gulpilil, a solid cast, and gorgeous scenery keep The Tracker watchable, but they can't mask the fact that as an adventure, it's sluggish, and as a film about racism, it's often reductive and clumsy. Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
An underwritten drama. Read full review
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