A biker crime thriller with shades of Shakespeare, 1% harkens back to the glorious time where the gritty Australian crime movie dominated cinemas, with Stephen McCallum’s feature film debut an expertly made and performed genre work.

1% opens with a sight that will shake the hardest of men to the core: that of a bikie gang roaring across the motorway, headlights illuminating their path to assured destruction ahead. In this Stephen McCallum directed, Matt Nable written crime thriller, that destruction comes from within the Western Australian “1%” bikie gang the Copperheads.  

The plot is Shakespeare to the core: the ambitious Paddo (Ryan Corr) has taken the Copperheads to new heights since the incarceration of club president Knuck (Matt Nable). Now that Knuck is out a power play begins to develop, which becomes even more explosive when Paddo’s mentally unstable brother Skink (Josh McCanville) finds himself in deep trouble with a rival faction led by Sugar (Adrian Pedersen), and the mischievous Katrina (Abbey Lee) urges Paddo to draw first blood.

The films title, 1%, refers to bikers who view themselves hard riding, hard partying, and no BS taking criminals, and the characters in this this film play that part to chilling, disturbing, magnetic effect. McCallum does an excellent job thrusting the viewer into this world where allegiances are torn apart by a bullet, and power is wielded through sadistic violence. Many disturbing sequences are featured throughout, yet so strong is McCallum’s filmmaking and Nable’s screenplay, that it does not feel exploitative in any way.

Performances from all involved are terrific. Ryan Corr continues to prove why he is one of Australia’s more versatile actors, embedding his Paddo with a torment that grows in every scene. Nable is equally strong as the repugnant Knuck. A character of strong physical presence and warped sense of power, Nable dives head first into portraying this violent and repugnant man, and does so to scary, powerful results. Great too is Josh McConville as the simpleminded brother who is more burden than kin, as are both Abbey Lee and Simone Kessell who play the Lady Macbeth’s of this Shakespeare meets Sons of Anarchy mash-up.

Stylish, gritty and well executed in all facets, 1% joins the very best Australian crime thrillers that once upon a time used to be an event on the cinema screen, and now passes as mediocre entertainment on TV. Both a glorious throwback and representation of the best today in Aussie genre film, 1% is a classic in the making.