Johnny Depp and Amber Heard biosecurity video 'review'

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard: Australian biosecurity is a triumph of minimalist cinema that has forced its way into the pantheon of movie history in a matter of minutes.

The 42-second magnum opus proves Johnny Depp, husband to Australia's most famous immigration card falsifier Amber Heard, is back at the top of his game.

The Pirates of the Carribean mega-franchise commerciality is just a memory, Alice in Wonderland can be virtually banished from his IMDB page and Mortdecai is no more.

Depp is on Oscar-worthy indie classic form as flawless foil to the protagonist Amber Heard, played by Heard.

Detached, seemingly inauthentic performances from the two stars are anything but. Far from the poor execution of a cynical ploy to curry favour with a Gold Coast magistrate, Depp and Heard's lack of conviction is a comment on modern society's abhorrence of empathy.

On the face of it, it's easy to interpret that lack of empathy as a reference to their treatment after recently-PM-for-36-hours Barnaby Joyce declared war on the film's off-screen stars, Pistol and Boo.

But the unauthorised air arrivals' fates are just a metaphor for society's general malaise, a feeling so impossible to define yet so perfectly captured on the Australian Government Department of Agriculture and Water Resources' YouTube account.

In yet another example of the Depp-Heard power couple turning modern cinema on its head, the cinéma vérité masterpiece's climax comes in the first 10 seconds.

Depp deadpans past the fourth wall and delivers possibly the most powerful line in cinema since "you shall not pass".

"It has to be protected," says Depp of our wide brown land and its biodiversity, perfectly capturing the essence of his character, a self-portrait wrapped in a parody, shrouded in an enigma.

When Heard describes Australia as "a wonderful island, with a treasure trove of unique plants, animals and people" she is talking not of the southern continent with the quarantine regulations that bamboozled her 11 months ago but of the diverse inner beauty that inhabits every one of us.

The pundits slamming Johnny Depp and Amber Heard: Australian biosecurity as a shoddily made mea culpa, aimed only at reducing Heard's punishment fail to see the forest for the trees.

This cinematic marvel's audience is not just Magistrate Bernadette Callaghan, who let the Danish Girl star off with a $1000, one-month good behaviour bond but at every single one of us.

As well as Barnaby Joyce's new favourite film, it's a cinematic icon for a modern age.