Blinder

Synopsis. In 2003 Tommy Dunn (Oliver Ackland) was a member of the Torquay Tigers (a real-life footy team on Victoria's southwest coast) but at their Grand Final celebration party things got out of hand and the ensuing scandal ended his hopes of a full-time football career. Ten years later he returns to his home-town and tries to put the past to rest.

Following hard on the heels of the cricket comedy Save Your Legs! which was released last week to a devastating lack of interest comes another Aussie sports film, this time about football. It’s not a comedy although you would not know that as its title is misleading and the film has had no publicity. That it has managed to get a theatrical release is surprising as it is one of those Australian films (and there are quite a few of them) that make you ask for whom was this made? Are footy fans going to watch a doleful story of a small-time AFL team’s implosion? Are serious film-goers going to want to sit through protracted simulations of football games? The answer you’d think would be pretty obvious and indeed the box office takings are going to be just enough to pay for the nails for the film's coffin.

There are some good things about Blinder but these are outweighed in every respect by the not-so-good. It has in essence a story worth telling but it's not well-scripted enough to give it effective dramatic form. It gets quite a bit better as it travels along and eventually hits its payload when it confronts the incident in question but it takes too long in getting there and fumbles the ball badly with an overlong and rose-tinted denouement.

The cast are quite good with Rose McIver handling the 10 year time shift skilfully, Seann Scott Williams-lookalike Josh Helman effective as an aspiring pro-footballer and Jack Thompson giving a suitably blustery performance as coach Charlie "Chang" Hyde. On the other hand Angus Sampson’s comic relief is very much in the take-it-or-leave department, Anna Hutchison is awkward as Tommy’s girlfriend and in the lead Oliver Ackland, who has neither has the physique nor the attitude for the part, is unconvincing. The football scenes are quite well-staged (although what would I know?) but there are simply too many of them while the film jumps back and forth across the 10 year time span without finesse and so often that eventually you cease to care but just wish they'd get on with it.

Blinder is at least a bit better than it’s been cracked up to be and probably would have made a decent telemovie had it tackled its issues head-on. On the big screen, however, it simply does not stand up to scrutiny.

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