Honestly I was going to rate this movie much lower, but the last 25 minutes changed my mind drastically.
It's very low budget, and has some dumb scenes and not very good acting, even from Sam Neill, when he 'suddenly' gets surprised about his son's involvement. I sometimes watch these movies because of the actors, and because these lower budget 'independent' features often surprised you before, in the 90's and early 00's, with scenes and plot developments that a bigger, more 'audience pleasing' films couldn't, having more studio control and people demanding things go a certain way. I haven't seen one be risky or interesting enough lately, and was going to be disappointed yet again.
Well I'm glad this one managed a lot in the last 20 minutes to change my mind and leave a great impression, even making everything that happened before feel less trivial, straightforward, and cliched.
Mostly it's thanks to Rachel Griffiths, and her awesome character that speaks facts, and acts viciously upon them. I haven't seen a character I agree so much with in a long while. She's who and where she's because she gets stuff done and doesn't wuss around (imagine more expletives there).
Barry Pepper has also always been a great actor, and too bad he isn't getting meatier roles.
It's still a 'B-movie', but a better one out of many, making me believe again, and continue to 'test drive' these in the future, just when I was about to give up.
