Writer-director Ivan Sen’s “Limbo” is a film of few words, little action and an understated resolution.

It’s a murder mystery starring Simon Baker, but co-starring the scenery near Coober Pedy, a dry, under-populated sandscape riddled with holes.

When Baker’s Det. Travis Hurley shows up there, he checks into the Limbo Hotel — like most of the places we see there, a structure dug out of the outcroppings and cliffs. Never was there a more apt and allegorical name for a hostelry in the pockmarked middle of nowhere than that.

Hurley’s in purgatory, tracking a 20 year old cold case stuck in “Limbo.”

Sen sets about introducing this character, filling in just enough of his back story to get by. Hurley’s first act on checking in is to cook and shoot-up his needle drug of choice. Every person he speaks with he tries to keep at some distance. At one point, he tosses his badge to a former murder suspect (Rob Collins) rather than getting any closer before asking questions.

When Hurley gets no answers, which is is the case with the missing woman’s brother Charlie (Collins) and others, as often as not, he just shrugs.

“Fair enough.”

The victim — no body was ever found — had a mistrustful sister, too (Natasha Wanganeen). No one there, especially the Aboriginal friends and relatives of missing Charlotte, wants anything to do with a “white fella copper.”

As we listen and Hurley to the 20 year-old tapes of police interrogations from back then, with their racism and ridiculously obvious efforts at railroading anybody with dark skin, we get it. So does Hurley.

“Fair enough.”

Writer-director Sen — who filmed the similarly-plotted “Goldstone” a few years back — keeps one detail from the viewer long enough for us to ponder “What are they all digging for?” It’s opals, but the gemstone’s only connection to the plot are as a reason for the pits, tunnels, homes and church carved out of the rock there.

This loner with a drug problem (understated) never sees much urgency in this work, even as we see him visit suspects and question the missing young woman’s family. And the family is not just wary. They have spent their lives keeping their expectations when it comes to justice from “white fella coppers.”

Baker plays this Bryan Cranston-weathered, Guy Pearce-introverted detective so close to the vest he’s almost mesmerizing in the role. We read into him what he won’t say about his issues, his past and just what he’s too cautious to say he hopes to accomplish here.

“I guess I don’t like anyone too much. Most people don’t think too much of me, either.”

I was wholly taken in by the forlorn setting — accentuated by the black and white photography — and by the racism subtext in play here. But too little happens in “Limbo” for my taste, and there’s a fine line between “patient” storytelling and a film so slack in its pacing as to lower the stakes and test the viewer’s patience.

Still, that barren landscape, a wasteland before men and women covered it in holes, is unforgettably striking and just symbolic enough to keep us hopeful this “Limbo” provide some answers.

Rating: unrated, drug and alcohol abuse, profanity

Cast: Simon Baker, Natasha Wanganeen, Rob Collins, Joshua Warrior and Nicholas Hope.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Ivan Sen. A Music Box release.

Running time: 1:49