THE NUGGET
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: In Australia, three hard-drinking, fun-loving yobbos come upon the largest gold nugget ever found. The result is not so much riches as pandemonium. Writer/director Bill Bennett was trying for a "local color" sort of comedy, but ends up with the sort of comedy we see a lot on cable. Entertaining but nothing really special. Rating: 5 (0 to 10), low +1 (-4 to +4)
This is a pleasant and amiable enough situation comedy made for Showtime Australia. It blazes no new trails, but it is a likable way to spend an hour and a half. It has nothing in the way of a social message.
Three working-class stiffs who work on a road crew spend their weekends doing their equivalent of going fishing. They go off in the woods somewhere off in the Outback and pretend to be looking for gold. The only gold they expect to find comes foaming out of a can. Then one goes off in the woods to get rid of some of that beer and finds the world's largest gold nugget. At first it seems like they have gotten their dream and everything is going to be spiffy. But the discovery only starts the expected set of double-crosses among friends and local financial vultures. To the film's credit, the action keeps going and if never original, it also is never dull.
There is nothing in this film not already familiar from other films. The foibles of the beer-drinking louts are intended to be endearing, but they never quite make it. The running gag is that whatever happens the three guys have to think about it over a beer. When the plotting gets difficult toward the end they just add an impossibility and fall back on the explanation that they said it would be a hard story to believe, and, yup, it sure is.
THE NUGGET was written and directed by Bill Bennett. The film opens October 17 in Australia and then will show on Showtime. On cable I think this is a fine film. In a movie theater I think I would expect a little bit more. I rate it a 5 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2002 Mark R. Leeper
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