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Unlucky numbers: 1% (2017), The Death & Life of Otto Bloom (2016)

 

Sandy Harbutt’s Stone—with its ambitious scale, impressive action set pieces, and an ensemble studded with excellent character actors—casts a fairly imposing shadow over any Australian biker films in its wake, but 1% (2017) carves its own scrappy, gnarly place at the table, with shades too of Rowan Woods’ The Boys and David Michod’s Animal Kingdom. Directed by Stephen McCallum and also known as Outlaws, it centres on the power dynamics in a motorcycle gang between its president (Matt Nable), recently released from prison, and interim leader (Ryan Corr, surprisingly adept in the role) who’s covering for his erring brother’s (Josh McConville) misdemeanors. There’s a more interesting side story to be told about fraught relations with Aaron Pedersen’s charismatic rival gang leader, but 1% manages to tap a Shakespearean vein or two with its themes of succession and Lady Macbeth-esque wife characters, played well by Abbey Lee (Mad Max: Fury Road) and Simone Kessell (Liquid Bridge). 

The Death and Life of Otto Bloom (2016), written and directed by Cris Jones, centres on the titular Bloom (played by Xavier Samuel), whose consciousness experiences time in reverse. The film unfolds in a mockumentary format utilizing, among other things, talking head interviews, archival media, videotape & home movies, and stills, depicting Bloom’s early romance with an academic psychologist (Matilda Brown and later Rachel Ward), later relationships, international celebrity, and subsequent controversies and retreat from the limelight. The potentially lumpy concept is fairly well-executed, with whiffs of its more stylized antecedents The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Zelig, the latter most notably in the talking heads interviews (themselves cribbed by Woody Allen from Reds). The film is somewhat hampered by casting the likeable but thoroughly ordinary Samuel as the extraordinary Bloom; he’s serviceable, but lacks any enigmatic quality.

Ben 

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