Synopsis

TJ is a mad bastard, a hard-edged, urban street warrior Aboriginal man who's sick of scraping out an existence in the city. His estranged 13-year-old son Bullet is on the fast track to becoming one, too.

After being turned away from his mother's house, TJ sets off across the country to the Kimberly region of northwestern Australia to make things right with his son. Trying to find him he travels to the tiny frontier town of Five Rivers where he is confronted by the equally tough local cop Texas who has lived a tough life, and now wants to change things for the men in his community.

Crosscutting between three generations, Mad Bastards is a raw look at the journey to becoming a man and the personal transformation one must make.

Developed with local Aboriginal communities and fuelled by a local cast, Mad Bastards is about men with a brutal exterior and a very human interior, while drawing from the rich tradition of storytelling inherent in Indigenous life.

Using music from legendary Broome musicians the Pigram Brothers, writer/director Brendan Fletcher poetically fuses the harsh realities of violence, healing, and family.

There's not much fake in the film.

— Greg Tait, actor in Mad Bastards

The film's sense of reality is its greatest asset.

— Sydney Morning Herald