The Big Picture
- Force of Nature: The Dry 2 is not as impactful as the first film but still delivers solid performances.
- The sequel explores a new mystery involving a missing whistleblower who the world's saddest detective must find.
- Despite some rushed and awkward moments, the film maintains a solid foundation with a sense of impending tragedy.
In 2020’s dark Australian mystery thriller The Dry, we were thrown into the bleak aftermath of a vicious crime with only Eric Bana’s troubled yet determined detective Aaron Falk to lead the way. The film, while more than a little baggy at times, benefited from its confident command of atmosphere, a solid central performance, and a painful conclusion that brought everything together. Now, with its sequel, the goofily titled Force of Nature: The Dry 2, much is the same.
In another adaptation of a novel in the Jane Harper series, Bana is back in the leading role, chewing up scenes and reflecting on how his past intersects with this new case. Robert Connolly is again writing and directing, jumping around in time as the police try to put the pieces together. It’s also not quite as good as the first one, instead playing out in a more confined and less compelling fashion. At several points in the story, it even feels eerily similar to an episode of a mystery series like Three Pines more than it does a fully-formed film.
What Is 'Force of Nature: The Dry 2' About?
Trading a landscape ravaged by drought for a lush forest, Force of Nature: The Dry 2 is about a company’s remote hiking retreat that goes awry when one of the group doesn’t come back. Before she disappeared, Alice, played by Anna Torv of The Last of Us, talked to Falk about a money laundering scheme at her company. While cooperating with him as a whistleblower, he was putting more pressure on her to get information. He did so by showing up at her daughter’s school, something that angered Alice. Now that she may be in trouble, Falk fears that it may have something to do with how she was giving them information and that his pushing her too much may have put her at risk. Thus, with his partner Carmen (Jacqueline McKenzie), he’ll go to where Alice’s fellow hikers have now returned to try to find out what they know and if someone from their company may have tried to take her out.
Of course, there is more than meets the eye in this case. As we bounce back and forth from the ill-fated hike to its aftermath, it’s clear that someone is keeping something from Falk. Every moment when he seems like he is getting somewhere, a new piece of information will get uncovered that renders everything else largely secondary. Some of this can feel like rather silly storytelling, but the sincerity of Bana’s performance completely sells it. The many flashbacks to his character’s past don’t carry nearly as much weight this time around, but that’s largely because the film is attempting to juggle an entire additional timeline.
Is 'Force of Nature: The Dry 2' a Worthy Sequel?
Some of this leaves key developments feeling quite rushed and awkward, especially towards the end where multiple huge moments don’t feel like they’re quite given the time to breathe as they were in the first film. The reason this doesn’t doom the film is the foundation is still solid enough to hold together. More than the big twists, you’re invested in the sadness of increasingly realizing that this is all likely to end badly, no matter what the answers end up being. In fact, the atmosphere as it builds is stronger than the actual ending we arrive at.
Where the first film looked much more stark and desolate, with the vast drought-stricken land spreading out before you, this one is more drearily suffocating in the way it is shot and the setting itself. That the characters begin to speculate about an infamous serial killer being involved at one point almost feels like it was about to take a turn for something closer to the underrated recent film, The Stranger. It doesn’t quite rise to that level, but the darkness that’s swallowing everything up is still felt in these moments. As we increasingly understand, there is not likely to be any resolution to the case that can fully escape this grim reality.
Eric Bana on Bringing 'The Dry' to the Screen, 'Black Hawk Down' Memories, and His Experience Making 'Munich'
The Aussie actor also tells Collider about wanting to get more involved as a producer and his working relationship with director Robert Connolly.
And yet, the whole thing is given just the right amount of energy that it needs via its performances. Bana, while not given as much to work with this time around, can still make even a simple conversation scene into one that feels more significant both for the story and the characters struggling their way through it to the truth. It’s also a film that doesn’t require any knowledge of the first film. This is largely to its benefit as it mostly manages to stand alone. However, this could prove to be a little strange for those that have seen what came before. The darkness of the prior events, with this supposedly picking up a year after, may loom large in the viewer's minds, though it doesn’t seem to be too much for the characters. Instead, there is a new mystery to be solved, and any sort of robust reckoning with the past is not what the film is interested in. Instead of being a mirror reflecting on who Falk now is after the trauma of the first film, it is about how a different case follows a similar, while still different, path for the man who may just be the world’s saddest detective (sorry Batman).
The film is not quite as impactful as its predecessor, but it still does hit on the ideas necessary to give it a similar heft. Like any good crime drama, the reality is that justice is in short supply as the people tasked with carrying it out often fall far short. That Falk becomes aware too late to avert its impact is fitting for the film as, in many ways, the experience itself feels like it is chasing something it can’t ever fully get a grasp on. It is constantly reaching for the more intriguing levels of the first film, but it never quite gets there. The performances are all giving the necessary punch even when the writing is not. It may frequently get lost in its own narrative woods, but Bana manages once again to bring it all back to humanity.
Force of Nature: The Dry 2 (2024)
Force of Nature: The Dry 2 is a sequel that benefits from another solid performance by Eric Bana even if it isn't quite as good as its predecessor.
- The film is able to mostly stand on its own, taking us into a new dark mystery that thrives on atmosphere.
- Eric Bana again gives the film the necessary heft even when the writing itself doesn't pack the same punch.
- While not fully successful, the film still manages to create a sense of darkness that threatens to swallow you whole.
- Some of the developments can feel rushed as this film juggles more and doesn't give key developments the same time to breathe as the first.
- The film can often rely on rather silly storytelling and is rather confined in a way that prevents if from feeling fully-formed.
Force of Nature: The Dry 2 is now playing in theaters in the U.S. and is available to stream on VOD. Click below for showtimes near you.
