Director Gale Edwards
Starring Sebastian Gregory, Isabel Lucas, William Zappa
Rated PG
Score 5.5/6

A young aspiring rock guitarist is forced to become the musical director of the local marching band when his father is hit by a bus just four weeks before a major competition.

For those of you who might be wondering I last reviewed A Heartbeat Away in September of 2011. I suppose the reason why I decided to revisit this was the finale which had been rattling around in my head for the past couple of weeks so I thought I would put an end to that and revisit A Heartbeat Away. Before I get to far into things for the record, I would like to state that A Heartbeat Away has the second most iconic use of a guitar in Australian Cinema.

If memory serves me well this was released directly to DVD so there is every chance that you might not have heard anything about this. But there are a few familiar faces cast in this to get you over any stigma you might have for direct to disc release such as Colin Friels as Mayor Riddick who is slimy in ways that would make Harold Gribble Round the Twist blush, then of course there is the brilliant Tammy Macintosh as Grace Flack and Isabel Lucas as Mandy Riddick.
This time round I might have had a couple laughs, the brawl that starts in the lifts was definitely the source of a few of those laughs as well as Adam Saunders’ moment with Kevin’s guitar. I suppose in places might be a little cliched such as the love story and the relationship between Kevin and his father but it can easily be overlooked because it really doesn’t take to much away from the movie experience.
Also I’d like to note while I finish off this review I thought it was kind of interesting that this time round I was reminded of a moment from the 1998 movie Still Crazy and God’s taste in Rock’n’Roll.