‘Last Stop Larrimah’ Review: Max’s Outback Mystery Isn’t Must-See True Crime
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Netflix’s “Tiger King,” about a gaggle of eccentric cat breeders in Florida, was a marker of the pandemic’s dog days for us all with its March 2020 release and so most prefer the exploitative docuseries to remain a figment of the past. But various series or made-for-TV documentaries released since have attempted to huff off its formula: lifting the lid off the trash can of society for a look inside. Director Thomas Tancred’s “Last Stop Larrimah” is not quite like this, as this nearly two-hour Max documentary about the quirky townsfolk of a small locality in the Northern Territory of Australia, population 11, is never exploitative so much as endeared to its subjects. But the local color on display — and repetitiveness of detail suggestive of a one-hour-worthy film stretched to what feels like series length in one feature — indicates an HBO stab toward sparking a viral phenomenon such as “Tiger King” but in the Outback.
Less than two weeks before Christmas on December 16, 2017, 70-year-old Paddy Moriarty went missing. Also vanished was his dog Kellie. His disappearance was never explained, and he was never found. Tancred’s documentary works backward to unpack how that might have happened, shedding light on the various town infightings that may have led to his vanishing. Maybe Barry, the owner of the local watering hole and the unspoken Mayor of the Town, had something to do with it. Or his pet crocodile. Or what about Paddy’s neighbors, Karl and Robbie, directly across the street? They might know something, and also because they hated him. Then there’s Fran, the tea house owner and local meat pie peddler, who harbored her own dislike of him. (There’s even speculation that Fran went full “Sweeney Todd” and put Paddy into said meat pies.) Meanwhile, Fran’s gardener Owen, and Owen’s dog, pretty much always wanted Paddy and Kellie dead.
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Since there are so few folks in town, it’s easy to point to fingers. “Last Stop Larrimah” unfolds as “An Outback Tale in 5 Chapters” — and anything invoking this sort of chapter structure will have you inevitably checking your watch, or at least counting how many chapters are left to go if you’re not invested. With each chapter, a new layer of Paddy as a loudmouthed, Outback cliché emerges, but not without an intriguing backstory. Paddy immigrated as a teen from Ireland in the 1960s before working as a cattleman and eventually landing in Larrimah, where he never left. Paddy’s transient background makes it possible to believe he vanished into thin air of his own volition once again, his cowboy hat and wallet left behind at the house.
Tancred’s aesthetic approach to the material feels a bit too cheeky at times, as if he’s both bewildered by and a bit making fun of these people, especially in the music choices. Anyone not endemic to this remote Middle of Nowhere would be out of their depth, but Tancred perhaps doesn’t quite capture the same reverence for the orange-hued desert beauty of the Outback and its people that his camera does, and the jaunty soundtrack doesn’t always help. But even still, this is a town with a Pink Panther-themed hotel, after all. For true crime fans, “Last Stop Larrimah” isn’t an urgent must-see, and I am told that the “Lost in Larrimah” podcast from five years ago is an even sharper recounting of the mysterious events. But the unsettling unsolved nature of the tale remains pungent, and so do the Missing posters throughout the community.
Grade: C+
“Last Stop Larrimah” is now streaming on HBO Max.
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