Published 2018 on Down Under Flix
Crime films are a staple of the Australian film diet: the cinematic equivalent of potato or dairy. The country’s first feature length film (and indeed the world’s) was 1906’s The Story of the Kelly Gang, one of many film accounts of Ned and company’s anti-heroic exploits. The genre’s still going strong 110+ years later: the last twenty years especially have produced a bumper crop of Australian crime stories with Two Hands, Chopper, The Hard Word, Gettin’ Square, The Square, and Animal Kingdom, and that’s discounting television, where the genre’s equally fruitful. A cursory survey of films covered on Down Under Flix during its two year tenure reveals a booty of films centred on outlaws – from 1981 gem Hoodwink to 2013’s Felony via a Melbourne gangland Macbeth, siege drama Mr Reliable, prison drama Ghosts…of the Civil Dead, and a rather ornate iteration of the Ned Kelly legend – and I could fill another half year of programming on this genre alone. I won’t, because I appreciate some variety in my viewing diet, but below are short takes on three very different crime films, in which criminal protagonists are cast in the guises of tragic heroes, dangerous figures, Aussie battlers, and Falstaffian buffoons.
Crime films are a staple of the Australian film diet: the cinematic equivalent of potato or dairy. The country’s first feature length film (and indeed the world’s) was 1906’s The Story of the Kelly Gang, one of many film accounts of Ned and company’s anti-heroic exploits. The genre’s still going strong 110+ years later: the last twenty years especially have produced a bumper crop of Australian crime stories with Two Hands, Chopper, The Hard Word, Gettin’ Square, The Square, and Animal Kingdom, and that’s discounting television, where the genre’s equally fruitful. A cursory survey of films covered on Down Under Flix during its two year tenure reveals a booty of films centred on outlaws – from 1981 gem Hoodwink to 2013’s Felony via a Melbourne gangland Macbeth, siege drama Mr Reliable, prison drama Ghosts…of the Civil Dead, and a rather ornate iteration of the Ned Kelly legend – and I could fill another half year of programming on this genre alone. I won’t, because I appreciate some variety in my viewing diet, but below are short takes on three very different crime films, in which criminal protagonists are cast in the guises of tragic heroes, dangerous figures, Aussie battlers, and Falstaffian buffoons.
33 Postcards
Director: Pauline Chan
Stars: Guy Pearce, Zhu Lin, Claudia Karvan, Rhys Muldoon, Lincoln
Lewis
In
2011’s 33
Postcards,
Mei Mei (Zhu Lin) is a Chinese orphan sponsored by an Australian benefactor, with
whom she corresponds via postcards. When her orphanage choir makes the
pilgrimage to Australia, she goes to visit her sponsor, only to find that Dean
(Guy Pearce) is a convict serving a prison sentence. The film chronicles their
developing friendship and Dean’s efforts to protect both himself behind bars
and Mei from his criminal acquaintances outside the prison walls.
Pauline
Chan’s film is an earnest, empathetic character study that wears its heart
proudly on its sleeve, and its sincerity compensates for some of its
shortcomings. Dating the Enemy coupling Pearce and Claudia Karvan (as Dean’s lawyer) are
characteristically solid, and while Mei’s innocence to the world is perhaps
laid on too thick at times (though maybe that’s jut the cynical Australian in
me talking) leaving Zhu Lin without much nuance to work with, the actress holds
her own against the industry stalwarts. There’s never a palpable sense that
things are going to go truly awry for Mei or Dean (Geoffrey Wright’s 33 Postcards, in contrast, I’d be
terrified to fork over money for), but Chan and company nonetheless build
tension and generate ample human drama.
Son of a Gun
Director: Julius Avery
Stars: Ewan McGregor, Brenton Thwaites, Alicia Vikander, Tom
Budge, Matt Nable, Eddie Baroo
Where 33 Postcards is first and foremost a
human drama with crime film elements, 2014’s Son of a Gun is a more traditional
meat & potatoes crime movie with a tougher edge. It carries more than a
whiff of the previously reviewed Hoodwink, with its macho tone,
and Felony, with its imported UK star
adding gravitas to the local cast: Tom Wilkinson there, Ewan McGregor here.
McGregor is one of the best actors of his vintage and a guy who never really
got the big career wind expected, arguably due to the taint of headlining
the Star Wars prequels. Watching him
in recent years in fare like Last Days in the Desert, Jane Got a Gun, Our Kind of Traitor, Fargo, and T2: Trainspotting, there’s a whole lot of charisma and chops still being tapped.
He’s consistently good and does strong work here as Brendan Lynch, a veteran
criminal doing a life sentence behind bars. Under his wing falls JR (Brenton
Thwaites), a vulnerable young convict serving a six month prison term. In
exchange for Brendan’s protection, JR helps break him out of prison after he’s
released, and the pair team up to steal gold bricks from a Karlgoorlie mining
operation. However, complications arise when JR embarks on an affair with their
boss’s mistress, Tasha (recent Oscar winner Alicia Vikander, one year before
her breakout roles in Ex Machina and The Danish Girl).
Son of a
Gun is
a sturdy thriller that benefits from McGregor’s gravitas, nice turns from
Thwaites and Vikander, muscular direction by Julius Avery, and some solid
production value. I’ve commented in the past about the tendency among some
Australian films to be overly tentative and hesitant – a label one could easily
apply to 33
Postcards –
something which Adrian Martin describes as Australian cinema’s “chronic understatement”. However, Son of a Gun has no qualms about
being mainstream entertainment with a healthy dose of grit and blunt force.
It’s not transcendent genre fare like Animal Kingdom, but it’s a satisfying and functional thriller.
However, that didn’t bolster its commercial prospects: the film spent a week in
53 Australian theatres, opening in the number 15 slot and grossing only
$56,588. American thrillers also playing that week on significantly higher
screen counts and pulling in more cash included Gone Girl, A Walk Among the Tombstones, and The Equalizer. Whilst none of those titles
are slouches, I think Son of a Gun holds its own in that company.
While Son of a Gun’s under-performance speaks
loudly to ongoing issues with the poor distribution and promotion of local films,
I think some blame resides with local audiences. Australians are generally
reliable at sniffing out a ‘great’ Australian film: when Australia puts out
an Animal
Kingdom or
a Sweet
Country or
a Lion, we’re generally good at
seeking them out. But when Australia puts out a simply ‘good’ film, audiences
are slower on the uptake. We’re more likely to take a chance on or settle for
an American film that’s merely ‘good’, or much of the time less than ‘good’;
but with Australian films it’s not enough for a film to just be ‘good’, it has
to be exemplary to warrant the pilgrimage to the cinema. That’s a disservice to
a film like Son of a Gun, which is just as good as any ‘good’ American film, but won’t
be sought out the same way. Ultimately, audiences and distributors need to meet
halfway to ensure ‘good’ films don’t fall through the cracks.
Let's Get Skase
Director: Matthew George
Stars: Lachy Hulme, Bill Kerr, Alex Dimitriades, Craig McLachlan,
Wayne Hassell
Where 33 Postcards and Son of a Gun focus on blue collar
criminals, Let’s Get
Skase takes
as its inspiration Australia’s most notorious white collar criminal,
Christopher Skase. This 2001 men-on-a-mission comedy helmed by Matthew George
(who hasn’t directed since, but was one of 25 producers listed on the
acclaimed Wind River) revolves around a plot to
abduct billionaire pariah Skase from his exotic offshore hideaway and bring him
back to Australia to face criminal charges. Peter Dellesandro (Lachy Holme) is tasked
with recruiting and leading this posse, including firebrand Danny D’Amato (Alex
Dimitriades) and seasoned soldier Mitchell Vendieks (Bill Kerr), but faces
opposition from conspiring elites and opportunistic reality TV bounty hunter
Eric Carney (Craig McLachlan).
There’s
a long tradition of Australian battlers and underdogs taking aim at the corrupt
elites – see, for example, The Castle or Barry McKenzie Holds His Own – so it was inevitable that filmmakers
would eventually take aim at Christopher Skase. But to paraphrase Jurassic Park’s Ian Malcolm, just because filmmakers
could doesn’t mean that they should. The comedies built to last – think Some Like it Hot, Duck Soup, Airplane, The General, Annie Hall, to name just a handful –
have a certain built-in timelessness that surpasses the topical concerns and
fashions of the day, while comedies that date quickest tend to be reactive:
there’s a reason why Epic Movie, Disaster Movie, Superhero Movie, Meet the Spartans, and other lampoons of films not even 5 minutes old have
(thankfully) faded into oblivion. While superior to any of those rank
offerings, the fact remains that a film about a plot to abduct Christopher
Skase inherently wasn’t built for repeat comedic value through the ages. Alas,
the film didn’t even have a chance to be topical on its release: the real Skase
died a few months before its brief theatrical window, putting it
alongside Rambo 3 – in which Rambo
decimated the Russian military while the Cold War was thawing off-screen – in
the pantheon of unfashionably late productions.
Of
course, if the jokes landed that wouldn’t be a problem, but the comedy is
mostly middling. The cast are fine, with Hulme (who’s also credited as
co-writer) in particular digging into what on paper must have looked like a
fully-formed star-making role, but Let’s Get Skase is plagued by the same problems as many of
the comedies of the noughties, as discussed here, here, here, here, and here: it’s neither fish nor fowl,
and lacks sufficient venom in its fangs. There’s some value in Let’s Get Skase as a curio artefact,
and billionaire pariahs are certainly still newsworthy, but ultimately this is
more miss than hit.
Ben Kooyman