This film is a suspenseful thriller about four friends who go on a week-long jaunt of partying and drugs in Southern Cambodia. Things go very wrong when one of them goes missing in unexplained circumstances. The truth finally emerges at end of the film and along the way the viewer delves into the complicated lives of the characters once they return to Australia.

There are quite a few underlying human rights issues in this film, not least because viewers will have Schapelle Corby and the Bali 9 fresh on their minds. Though the plot is drawn from these and other nightmare traveller stories, it inevitably plays on xenophobic fears about crime, justice and way of life in other countries. This is further highlighted through images depicting extreme poverty in Cambodia, the child-sex trade, and one character’s profitable business based on the importation of cheap goods.

The film might succeed as a thriller but as a human rights film it fails to deal with the broader issue - Is it ok to view South East Asia as a cheap playground for Aussies where the ‘normal rules’ don’t apply?

Director: Kieran Darcy-Smith

Year: 2012