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Australia 2003
Directed by
Ted Emery
83 minutes
Rated M

Reviewed by
Bernard Hemingway
3 stars

The Honourable Wally Norman

That this 'little Aussie battler' comedy about a meat worker (Kevin Harrington) who stands for parliament in an attempt to save his small town's abattoir was both critically dismissed as yet another example of low-brow ‘ocker’ humour and sank like a lead balloon at the box office is both a pity and, at least in hindsight, to be expected. A pity because if not as engaging as stylistic benchmarks like The Castle it has an often-funny script by Andrew Jones and Rick Kalowski whose sense of humour is not far from the Barry Mackenzie style of Strine iconoclasm, a solid cast and some excellent performances, most notably from Alan Cassells as a crafty politician.

But what would have been cheekily risqué in a Barry Mackenzie film 30 years ago, like a town called Givens Head and a politician called F. Ken Oats, sends entirely the wrong message in a film which, somewhat incredibly, was conceived of as an endearing family movie. Whilst Australian audiences may not be ‘battler’ genre-fatigued, the casting of well-known TV faces like Kevin Harrington, Bryan Dawe, Greg Pickhaver and Shaun Micallef in a film by a director whose most successful work has been in television (notably Kath and Kim) means that there is little that would have been likely to inspire potential audiences to get off their couches, which is indeed the perfect viewing position for this reassuring fare.

DVD Extras: Along with the standard stills and trailer appendages there’s a promotional behind-the-scenes with members of the cast and crew featurette (stick around for the Greg Pickhaver segment) and an entertaining and informative commentary with the writers, director, Shaun Micallef and Kevin Harrington having lots of fun reminiscing on the making of the film - clearly none of their money was tied up in it.

 

 

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