Director Geoffrey Wright is faithful to Shakespeare’s written dialogue but utterly transforms its context. Macbeth (played with wit and ferocity by Somersault’s Sam Worthington) is recast as a pimpedout drug baron. Lady Macbeth (Victoria Hill) is Posh Spice on valium, waking occasionally from her bathtub stupors to engineer a plot for her husband and his brutish friends to seize control of a crime empire from glamorous Duncan (Gary Sweet), lord of Melbourne’s underworld. Once they commit their infamous act, the pair gradually give way to macho Macduff (Lachy Hulme) and a snotty Malcolm (Duncan’s son, played by Matt Doran), as Macbeth loses the confidence of the gang.
Wright—the gifted, rancorous Australian who brought us Romper Stomper—sets himself a monumental task here. Without making trite, easy associations, he constantly draws parallels between his rampaging Melbourne hoods and the great moments of crime cinema, from Little Caesar to GoodFellas. This is cinema at its most daring and compelling. Noah cowan.