Limbo (2023), directed by Ivan Sen

A heavily tattooed man with a gun and a drug habit drives into an opal mining town in the middle of nowhere. It is a surprise to find he is a cop assigned to review a 20-year-old missing persons case, when a young Aboriginal girl disappeared, presumed murdered. Local distrust means he makes little headway at first, but his outsider persona and lack of agenda sees him strike some tentative connections. Simon Baker is great as the hard-bitten cop, while Rob Collins and Natasha Wanganeen provide able support as the siblings still living with the tragic consequences of their sister’s unknown fate. This is an uneven film with some odd directorial choices. It is shot in black and white, which adds to the bleak atmosphere of the outback town but little else and there are strange and unnecessary, heavy-handed religious notes throughout. Limbo is an apt name for the state of a family and a community dealing with an unexplained mystery, but a weird name for a town.