Saturday, January 28, 2012
After joining as a university student and being lucky enough to represent them for part of Festival de Cannes 2011, my time as a senior contributor for Cut Print Review has come to an end after three years.
A large part of that comes down to my move and a new role that emerged as part of it.
The opportunity that came up some seven or so weeks ago to be the Daily Liberal's film reviewer, and since I've returned to a favourable routine of a film a week.
I've decided to let everyone in on my reviews as they're published in print so you can expect my new release look-in every Saturday, just in time for any pending decision on a weekend movie.
Read on, and please feel free to return the favour with your opinion!
A
Few Best Men (MA)
Australian comedy in cinema hasn’t been
overly memorable in recent years, something that doesn’t reflect our country’s
light-hearted nature. What we’re about seems to be a difficult thing to capture
because of our unique, laidback perspective on things.
This film has gone in a totally different
direction to tackle that issue, which somehow makes perfect sense. Many are
fans of the wry humour of the Brits and with our colonial connection it seems
interesting that we haven’t really gone down this road before.
And what better way to do it than going
straight to the top? The writer of both the English and American Death at a Funeral films has teamed up
with the director of The Adventures of
Priscilla: Queen of the Desert to bring an Australian-English mix of, well,
everything.
It seems like the ideal combination, both
Dean Craig and Stephan Elliott respectively having been hugely successful with
those particular efforts. They certainly have not held back in this instance,
pouring every comical subplot possible into the space of 96 minutes.
English David (Xavier Samuel) meets
Australian Mia (Laura Brent) on holiday and falling completely in love, decides
to marry her. With his three best mates he makes the trip from London to NSW’s
Blue Mountains for his big day, which in the space of 24 hours goes from bad to
worse, and then some.
David finds surprises from the moment he
steps off the plane, with best men Graham (Kevin Bishop), Tom (Kris Marshall)
and Luke (Tim Draxl) finding trouble very easily and not knowing how to handle
it. But it’s not restricted to one particular party.
The family are also something to handle, a
powerful unit that perhaps provides a good satirical look at those who are
considered to be elitists in this country. For David, it’s a case of everything
that goes wrong does, one thing after another. What happens on the buck’s night
definitely does not stay there, as a touch of influence from films like The Hangover sets the course for what
David’s friends make of the big event.
It comes across as a blend of a few
sub-genres seen in cinema over the last five years, taking from the
aforementioned film as well as Craig’s Funeral,
and reminiscent of producer Judd Apatow’s fare (think Pineapple Express). It holds onto the recently popular buddy theme,
while chucking in a bit of ‘bromance’ which is a particularly entertaining
element between Graham and drug dealer Ray (Steve Le Marquand).
Enjoyable for the masses, this is a decent
effort to bring a mix of Australian and English comedy together. While odd that
Adelaide’s Twilight star Samuel plays
the lead Englishman, he does an understated job of it. Marshall, so lovable in Love Actually, reprises some of his role
from that film as Tom, but Bishop as Graham has the most interesting character
to work with as the butt of the gang’s jokes.
It’s on the Australian side where the
expectation doesn’t necessarily hold up. The cast is noteworthy - Le Marquand
and Rebel Wilson as Mia’s sister Daphne easily deserving more screen time than they
get, but Olivia Newton-John is over the top as mother-in-law Barbara, and not
necessarily in a good way.
While only with a few key plot points,
there’s so much drama around them that it’s hard to believe they could possibly
endure any more. It’s a surprise Mia is still there halfway through the film
(and that’s not giving anything away) because you wouldn’t blame her if she did
a runner.
There are crude moments, but not in the
vein of the graphic scenes audiences are becoming used to, and there are definitely
laughs. Although lacklustre in its ending with said laughs wearing thin, it’s a
good effort on the path of reshaping Australian comedy for the early part of
this century.
Rating:
3/5
*As published in the Daily Liberal (Dubbo), Western Advocate (Bathurst), Parkes Champion Post and Midstate Observer (Orange) from Saturday 28/1/2012
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