Blowing Hot And Cold

Very much in the Aussie vernacular, Marc Gracie's first film is a low budget comedy that starts off well enough with wacky Sicilian Nino (Joe Dolce, playing somewhere between Chico Marx and Roberto Begnini) arriving in the life of Jack (Peter Adams) who runs a one-man petrol station in the boondocks of Central Victoria. The story then slowly develops two themes - the developing friendship between the two men and the search for Jack's daughter (Kate Gorman) who's run off with a drug-dealing low-life.

Exactly why Nino is such a caricature is not clear but one might surmise that for writers Rosa Colosimo (also the producer) Sergio Donati, Luciano Vincenzoni and Reg McLean, he is intended to represent the stereotypical "wog" as perceived by the Anglo-Australian majority although this seems more than a little anachronistic. Still, depth of characterization is hardly to the fore here, the object being as many broad laughs as possible. There are indeed some of these, wrapped up in a predictable journey to a happy ending, although not enough to lift it above the ordinary.

 

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