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Ordinary Australian life is treated with much affection in this story of 2 brothers, one a small garage owner, Steve (Frankie J. Holden), struggling to make ends meet in the family business in suburban Adelaide, and the other, Noel (Dennis Coard), a successful insurance broker who left their childhood home to forge a new path in Melbourne.

Through this pair director Ray Argall, who also wrote the screenplay, paints an empathetic picture of a disappearing Australia as the burgeoning profit-driven dictates of economic rationalism sweeps aside paper boys on bikes, local shops and neighbourly values. Mixed in is a sub-plot concerning Gary (Ben Mendelsohn), Steve’s apprentice, a hot-head generally at odds with the world who Noel takes under his wing.

Whilst the simplicity of the story is in one sense the film’s charm, on the other hand Argall does not manage to invest proceedings with much dramatic depth and tends to replay certain thematically-illustrative set-ups in order to drive the narrative to an unsurprising feelgood ending.The cast all acquit themselves well with Mendelsohn excelling in the kind of role that became his stock-in-trade but they are hamstrung by the monothematic nature of the script, in the latter stages, audibly sighing to express the overall mood of stoic resignation.

FYI: Steve’s wife is played by Micki Camilleri which I assume explains the otherwise gratuitous presence of Australian music legend Joe Camilleri, who as a busker sings a few bars of his hit "So Young".

DVD Extras: Deleted Scenes; Goof Reel; Stills Gallery; SBS Movie Show Interview with Ray Argall; 2 of Argall's short films; Theatrical Trailer

Available from: Umbrella Entertainment

 

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