Cody takes a look at an Australian thriller.
Last year, I watched the sci-fi thriller Alien Love, which was directed by Simon Oliver, a filmmaker who has made a lot of documentaries on subjects like aliens, UFOs, and the Illuminati. Now, Oliver has sent a new thriller out into the world – and this one leaves behind the sci-fi element entirely, even though it happens to have been written by Thomas Bodine, who appears to have very similar interests to Oliver’s, having previously written Top 25 Alien Encounters: UFO Case Files Exposed and Alien and UFO Encounters: The Top 20 (both of which were directed by Alexander Weiss). For this one, they went for very grounded, down-to-earth thrills.
Australian filmmaker Nathan Hill, who has been writing, directing, producing, and acting in films since the 1990s (I’ve also written about him in the Alien Love and the Blown Away tribute Lady Terror), stars in Bitter Desire as a police officer named Steve, who is introduced while making his way through a burning building in pursuit of a criminal he has been tracking down for a while: Tass Tokatlidis as a very bad guy named Andrew. Andrew proves his villainy by giving Steve an intense beat-down with a crowbar, leaving our hero badly injured.
Jump ahead two weeks. Steve is recuperating at home with his wife Lexi (Shar Dee), who gives him regular physical workouts (if you know what I mean) in between visits from physical therapy nurse Harmony (Hao Dao). Eager to get revenge, Andrew sends his own girlfriend Sasha (Diana Benjamin) to “penetrate Steve’s castle walls” and eff him up. So Sasha threatens Harmony away from Steve and replaces her as his nurse. It’s a classic “dangerous schemer infiltrates the home” set-up, and I really enjoy watching thrillers like this.
Sasha turns Steve’s life upside down by keeping him drugs and weirding him and his wife out with unusual comments and behavior – and while you go into this sort of movie expecting there to be some kind of sexual tension between the male lead and the female villain, Bitter Desire seemed to make that unlikely by showing that Steve and Lexi have a very active sex life. Oh, but Sasha does find a way to bring bad touches into the film in a rather shocking way.
Bitter Desire is an interesting movie with a strong set-up, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied with how it played out. It felt like the movie could have taken more time building up the ways Sasha messed with Steve’s life. She could have done more, there could have been more suspense to what was going on. The movie is only 70 minutes long, with the end credits starting to roll at 66 minutes, and it felt like it could have benefited from being at least ten minutes longer.
But, at least it doesn’t take up too much of your day. Hill, Dee, and Benjamin all do solid work in their roles, and there are some side characters who make an impression by commenting on what’s going on over at Steve and Lexi’s house, or trying to convince Sasha that she should just walk away from Andrew.
Bitter Desire didn’t seem to reach its full potential, but if you want some quick, low budget thrills, check it out. It’s available on Prime Video.
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