Sweet Talker

Sweet Talker is a likeable family comedy in the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels manner. Bryan Brown, in breezy fashion, plays a con man who arrives in the sleepy coastal town of Beachport near Mt Gambier on the border between Victoria and South Australia. His plan, which he has stolen from his former cellmate, Cec, (Bill Kerr) involves swindling the locals by claiming to know the whereabouts of a lost Portugese galleon. Of course, he doesn't count on the good-hearted ways of the townsfolk, particularly not, the hey-this-couldn't-be-an-attempt-to-sweeten-the-US-market, American single mother, Julie (Karen Allen, best known from the Indiana Jones films) and her young son (Justin Rosniak).

The story,solidly written by Tony Morphett from an idea credited to himself and Brown, holds no surprises and Jenkins directs with similar conventionality but the film maintains a consistent standard across the board and is enjoyably affable.

 

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