In Hollywood’s hands this would be a pulse-pounding thriller, but Maddelin McKenna’s lithe feature debut is all about street-level authenticity
There are few films that feel as quintessentially “Melbourne” as Mad Rush, the feature debut of writer-director Maddelin McKenna. It largely unfolds in the city’s centre, with a scaled-back colour palette – lots of blues and greys – that seems informed by the city itself. McKenna brings a grainy street-level authenticity to a story centred on gen Z protagonist Madisha (Senuri Chandrani), who is targeted by an intricate phone scam involving callers who claim to work for the Australian tax office and insist she withdraw all cash from her bank account.
In Hollywood’s hands this premise would probably become a pulse-pounding thriller. Here, it more closely follows the beats of a far more realistic “day in the life of” narrative. Its small conversation-based moments are convincingly staged, but don’t do much to service the plot or propel things forward, although the pacing remains quite tight across the run time’s lithe 76 minutes.