This is a good example of Australian cinema with great photography, solid acting and well thought through directing.

The story arc starts well initially but I found myself checking the run time towards the end of the film thinking there was more to come. It's almost as if the third act was missing.

There were some curious local characters introduced that we really didn't get to know. I love the fact that we didn't get to know what happened to the previous bar girls but without seeing what the bad boys are truly capable of really diminished the gravity of any potential conflict and consequently the size of any payoff.

I'm left wondering if the script was edited down to fit a production budget. It's like being taken on a journey with no intention of reaching the destination. The ending seemed rushed and far less thought through that the preceding scenes.

This was a potentially good film but was it compromised somewhere somehow?

This was a decent enough film on its own merits, however I urge anyone who enjoyed it, or even thought they were going to enjoy it but didn't, to watch Hotel Coolgardie. This is the true story documentary that the film is based on. The film is set in a very similar place, but the characters in the film, rough as they might be supposed to be, are far more clean cut than the people in real life. They are also far less sinister than the real life people, albeit it's more subtle in the documentary. Hotel Coolgardie really shows the pitfalls of isolation and toxic masculinity, and paints a really frightening portrait of rural Australia.

It is a metaphor for women in their workplaces. If you think it is too over the top and exaggerated, ask the women around you (girlfriends/wives/friends), and they'll tell you that it could easily be passed for any corporate offices in any of the metropolitan, at least their fear and constant guard. Places where women are constantly objectified, harassed, discriminated against, and preyed upon. The men in sharp suits and pleasant demeanors are not too different from the seemingly barbaric and boorish miners of the royal hotel, who are so ignorant that they don't know the difference between harassment and harmless flirting, and the concept of consent is alien to them. Any of them can be a potential sex offender - a molester or, worse, a rapist. To survive in this world, women have to constantly watch their moves, read their intentions, and carefully choose (curate and refine) their own actions, words, and even body language so as not to unintentionally encourage unsolicited advances, on top of all this, they have to do their work effectively and efficiently. No wonder women excel at multitasking. Oh, the only surety of survival is...you burn the whole effing place down.