Debut director Roderick MacKay’s compelling meat pie western poses questions about
Australian identity but never feels polemical or even political
A sunburnt and badly wounded David Wenham, looking haggard and sounding hoarse but radiating as much gravitas as ever, slogs across outback Australia as a gold thief in The Furnace, accompanied by a young Afghan cameleer (Ahmed Malek) with whom his character develops an unlikely friendship. Or perhaps “business associate” is a better way of putting it. On the ground propped up against a log of wood, grumbling about how he must find somewhere to rest “before the dingoes get me”, Mal (Wenham) soon reveals he has in his possession two 400oz crown-marked gold bars: a veritable mother lode of riches.
But Mal doesn’t walk so good, being potentially on death’s door and all, so he needs the help of Hanif, the cameleer, to reach the titular location. There they can indulge in a kind of proto money-laundering operation; the bars inscribed with the crown can be melted down and transformed into untraceable gold.