Overall Rating
  Awesome: 41.72%
Worth A Look: 19.63%
Average: 14.11%
Pretty Bad: 4.91%
Total Crap: 19.63%
2 reviews, 151 user ratings
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| Australian Rules |
by Andrew Howe
"Another slice of small-town life"
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Films addressing the concerns of Australia’s aboriginal community are few and far between, but in the last six months Rabbit Proof Fence, Beneath Clouds and Black and White have redressed the balance. Australian Rules continues the trend by canvassing racial relations in a small rural town, and while its predecessors have stolen much of its thunder the central themes are always worth repeating.There’s not a lot to do when you’re young and restless and living on the sparsely populated South Australian coastline, so the local Australian Rules football tournament is treated with the reverence usually reserved for sold-out matches at the MCG. Gary Black (Nathan Phillips) is a white kid making the most of his limited sporting talents, and when the final whistle sounds he spends his time doing a whole lot of nothing with the aboriginal star player Dumby Red (Luke Carroll) and a racist dropkick named Pickles (Tom Budge). However, he gets all the action he needs at home courtesy of his abusive father Bob (Simon Westaway), and over the course of ninety minutes he works his way through a tale that encompasses sporting glory, domestic violence, interracial partnerships, the boredom of small-town life and explosive racial tension.
The film is based on Phillip Gwynne’s novel Deadly, Unna?, but his welcome input into the screenplay (co-written with director Paul Goldman) can’t disguise the fact that the adaptation lacks a strong narrative hook. Rabbit Proof Fence and Beneath Clouds used extended journeys to keep the narrative motoring along, while Black and White had an intriguing murder trial as its central focus. Australian Rules, on the other hand, is rooted in the stagnation of its characters’ parochial worldview, and their lethargic attitude occasionally rubs off on the viewer. This is not necessarily a bad thing – the New Zealand film Rain moved at a snail’s pace, but its expertly created atmosphere of decay exerted an almost hypnotic effect on the audience. Unfortunately, Goldman is content to tell it straight, and since the town isn’t the most evocative of locations there are long periods when you may find yourself counting the minutes.
The performances are difficult to fault, with special mention going to Westaway’s portrayal of a father and husband who might have been a good man if he hadn’t allowed the isolation to convince him that he’s justified in dispensing with conventional morality. Bob’s the kind of down-to-earth guy can have a few laughs with at the pub, but every now and again his façade slips to reveal the resentment born of the knowledge that he’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. You’re suddenly grateful that you don’t have to live in the same house with the man, a luxury denied Gary and his long-suffering wife, and the film rises on the strength of Westaway’s ability to communicate his character’s baser characteristics without allowing it to degenerate into a one-note performance.
The script’s exploration of its themes holds few surprises, and you’d certainly never accuse the film of exercising undue subtlety. There’s an aboriginal rabble-rouser who exists for no better reason than to prove that racism is not confined to the town’s white population, a relationship between Gary and an aboriginal girl which cements his status as a man who rejects the narrow-minded views of his peers, an instance of injustice at a prize-giving ceremony that makes it clear the town’s inhabitants have no intention of walking the road to reconciliation – it’s all well-constructed and perfectly watchable, but it’s difficult to escape the feeling that you’ve seen it all before. The sense of déjà vu is exacerbated by underwritten characters and a predictable final scene, though I’m led to believe this is partly due to jettisoning several major sections of the novel in an effort to focus the narrative.Despite its flaws, there’s enough on offer to justify a viewing. Some of the dialogue is inspired (the opening sequence is worth the price of admission alone), the final twenty minutes (excluding the coda) are peppered with powerful and emotional scenes, and Westaway takes the film to another level every time he appears onscreen. Expanding the narrative could have catapulted it into the realms of greatness, but we’re still left with a worthwhile addition to an area of Australian cinema that’s long overdue for expansion.
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link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=6036&reviewer=193
originally posted: 08/09/02 10:52:04
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For more in the Australian series, click here.
OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Brisbane Film Festival. For more in the 2005 Brisbane Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
02-Mar-2002
UK
N/A
Australia
29-Aug-2002
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