Metal Skin

It would be a safe bet that director Geoffrey Wright, who was also author of the screenplay for this film, has been considerably impressed by Coppola's Rumble Fish (1983). Here transposed into a story about Melbourne Western suburbs street drag racers, Aden Young plays the Matt Dillon character whilst Ben Mendelsohn stands in for Mickey Rourke.

Whereas Coppola elected for an elegantly stylised, stripped back, black and white treatment of youthful rebellion, inter-generational conflict and hero worship, Wright goes in the opposite direction mixing narrative and visual excess with unrestrained self-indulgence. Where his previous film Romper Stomper hit the mark thanks to its economical concentration on character and setting, a tendency towards histrionics latent there is here given head, the main rebel-without-a -cause story being tarted up with flourishes of amateur Satanism, parental insanity and a Dogs In Space-like depictions of drug-fuelled partying. This sensationalism won the film AFIs for production design and sound but emotionally it's too contrived to convince and most of the cast don't go close to bringing it off.

Aden Young is effective as the confused young man but Ben Mendelsohn is nobody's tough guy or ladies' man, Tara Morice is too old for the part and Nadine Garner, sporting a dreadful quiff for most of the film, is even more incongruous in this low-brow environment. The film is best in its action sequences with Wright effectively capturing the atmosphere of metal machine mayhem and some impressive stunt driving in its closing sequence. Wright clearly has skills as director, but would perhaps be better suited to working on other people's scripts.

 

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