DIRTY DEEDS
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A nice, ironic crime comedy from Australia has its rewards for those who can cut through the thick accents. David Caesar wrote and directed this tale of an Australian gambling machine lord who must protect his turf when the American mob starts muscling in on his territory. The results are amusing if not all that new or memorable. Rating: 6 (0 to 10), high +1 (-4 to +4)
From Australia comes a crime comedy-drama written and directed by David Caesar.
The year is 1969. Barry Ryan (played by Bryan Brown) is the slot machine emperor of Sidney, Australia. But how long can he hold that position? The American mob wants to buy him out. They sent a likable old hood (John Goodman) to do the negotiation and in case he needs some muscle he has Sal (Felix Williamson), a violent young traveling companion. There is some overstated poking fun at Americans being provincial and ignorant of Australian culture.
Barry Ryan's young protege, Barry's nephew Darcy (Sam Worthington) is just back from Vietnam. He finds he has two new interests in life, Barry Ryan's young girl friend and this strange dish the Yanks ate in Vietnam with the equally strange name "pizza." Barry Ryan has three conflicts on his hands. A rival gang is trying to muscle in on his slot business. The Americans are trying to force him to sell the business. And his wife (Toni Collette) is less than happy about sharing her husband with a woman ten years her junior.
The story mixes comedy and sudden bloody violence. DIRTY DEEDS comes with a tense car chase, but builds to a hunting trip in the outback that is played like a game of chess. Caesar's script is generally enjoyable, though the American hood makes a stupid tactical blunder that reminds the viewer that this is a contrived script.
Browne is his usual stern Australian self. Goodman is rather nice as a likable old hood with some deep regrets. Under-used is Sam Neill as a corrupt cop. I rate DIRTY DEEDS a 6 on the 0 to 10 scale and a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. Americans may have some problems with thick Australian accents and with Australian slang.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2003 Mark R. Leeper
========== X-RAMR-ID: 33976 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 836911 X-RT-TitleID: 10001825 X-RT-AuthorID: 1309 X-RT-RatingText: 6/10
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews