Dirty Deeds and Good Clean Fun: Some Recent Australian Caper Movies
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BRIAN McFARLANE Dirty Deeds and Good Clean Fun: Some Recent Australian Caper Movies The defi nition of a caper fi lm might often seem to be: ‘An entertainment in which the cast ap- pears to be having more fun than the audience.’ Think, for instance, of Ocean’s Eleven (Lewis Milestone, 1960) or any other of Sinatra’s Rat Pack japes. UT IT DOESN’T ALWAYS 1951), the broad comedy of Too Over the years, the plots have HAVE TO BE LIKE THIS; Many Crooks (Mario Zampi, 1959) become ever more convoluted, it can have more going and the cynicism of League of the violence generally more casu- for it than that sort of in- Gentlemen (Basil Dearden, 1960) ally terminal, as digitally created jokey indulgence. Hollywood has, to the visceral blackness of such imagery enables actors to meet for instance, created seriously pop- late twentieth-century numbers grislier and grislier deaths, and ular entertainments such as Topkapi as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking the comedy has become darker (1964, Jules Dassin), How to Steal Barrels (Guy Ritchie, 1998) and in hue. But some aspects of the a Million (1966, William Wyler), The Snatch (Ritchie, 2000). genre have persisted across the Sting (1973, George Roy Hill) and decades. Essentially, we are asked The Usual Suspects (1995, Bryan to suspend conventional moral Singer), as well as the recent re- criteria for human behaviour and to make of The Italian Job (2003, Gary align our sympathies with charac- Gray), which, whatever nostalgists ters who are more or less likeable insist, is at least as accomplished but just happen to be interested in as the British original of 1969 (Peter pursuing unlawful activities, notably Collinson). Britain’s reputation in theft, and sometimes a bit of good- this hybrid genre ranges from the natured murder. One sub-branch gentle humours of Ealing’s The Lav- of the genre ensures that we don’t ender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton, take these activities too seriously 48 • Metro Magazine No. 140 by focusing on the ineptitude of those involved. Think of Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks (2001) where some deeply incompetent ex-cons accidentally make a fortune from the sale of cookies, no less; or the hapless gang in Welcome to Collinwood (Anthony and Joe Rus- so, 2003) bent on retrieving a stash preoccupied with pursuing the Dirty Deeds and Good Clean Fun: left hidden by someone detained at sorts of narratives that tap into the governor’s pleasure. One way or that fanciful monolith, ‘the national other, the fi lms need to get a hold psyche’. Whereas Westerns were on the audience’s easy-going ac- a way of exploring and explaining Some Recent Australian Caper Movies ceptance of the ‘sting’ at the heart America’s agrarian past,2 there is of most of the plots, whether it’s a surely no comparably substantial matter of having attractive stars, like plifi ed by the likes of Picnic at body of fi lms seeking to or even in- Newman and Redford, or of a level Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975), advertently ruminating on our past, of wit in the writing that softens any The Getting of Wisdom (Bruce rural or urban. Odd popular fi lms, urge to censoriousness, as there Beresford, 1977) and My Brilliant such as The Man from Snowy River was in Dearden’s League, where, as Career (Gillian Armstrong, 1979), (George Miller, 1982) and Crocodile well, there was a degree of sympa- all based on popular and/or classic Dundee (Peter Faiman, 1986), offer thy for those whose peacetime lives novels and coming-of-age experi- local variants on, respectively, the had let them down, or of a bumbling ences set in decades past. The Western and the romantic-com- haplessness that means the gang received wisdom now seems to be edy adventure and, whatever their doesn’t pose a serious threat to life that these constituted an evasion GETTIN’ SQUARE intrinsic virtues, are not insignifi cant : as we know it. Crime, comedy and of the facts of contemporary life, commentaries on the way Australia likeable reprobates are the essential though it is surely possible for likes to mythologize itself. Strictly ingredients for most caper fi lms, fi lms set in earlier periods to be as DIRTY DEEDS Ballroom (Baz Luhrmann, 1992) and the pleasures along the way of- much ‘about’ the times in which : and Shine (Scott Hicks, 1996) have ten distract our attention from plots they are produced. How else does strong affi liations with such veteran of baffl ing intricacy. one account for the contempo- fi lm genres as the musical and rary (i.e. 1950s) relevance of a MIDDLE WITH INSET the biopic; but these are apt to be To turn to Australian efforts in this Western such as John Ford’s The one-offs, rather than exemplars of a genre is at once to be aware that Searchers, set far from comfort- sturdily worked genre fi eld. BAD EGGS : the local industry has not usually ably in the confl icts of the previous TOP LEFT WITH INSET been a genre-dominated cinema century? But if genre fi lmmaking All this is by way of drawing atten- at all. The 1970s revival got off has something in common with tion to what does seem to have to a box-offi ce start with a series the emergence of myths in distant established itself as at least a minor TAKE AWAY AWAY TAKE of unsubtle sex comedies (Stork, times, in places as diverse as : genre in the last few years of Aus- the ‘Alvin Purple’ fi lms), followed Greece, Scandinavia or Aborigi- tralian fi lm: the caper movie. If there by what has been rather unkindly nal Australia, then new Australian are not yet any classics to rival the dubbed the ‘AFC genre’, 1 exem- cinema has to be seen as not too stature of the US or UK titles men- LEFT PAGE TOP RIGHT WITH INSET Metro Magazine No. 140 • 49 tioned above, there are at least several as you would be, with avoiding Pando Bryan Brown is at it again in David lively and good-natured takes on this and with getting the money together Caesar’s Dirty Deeds (2002). In the essentially urban genre, with a nice range again. The latter cause involves a bank film’s opening roundup of its three main of scruffy incompetents and corrupt robbery of more than average ineptitude characters, he (Barry) is seen at breakfast smoothies going through their criminal and leads to a street shoot-out with with his son, prior to a sortie to smash up paces more troubled by each other than police, and there’s a further shoot-out in some one-armed bandits at a gambling by either law or conscience. Jonathan Pando’s headquarters just after Jimmy club. Before this, the film has introduced Teplitzky’s Gettin’ Square (2003) is the has returned the dough. But why go on Barry’s nephew Darcy (Sam Worthington) most recent and perhaps the most with the plot? It’s actually less complicat- in Vietnam 1969. Vietnam looks for all the accomplished, cheerfully surrendering ed than caper movies are apt to be, and world like a Wimmera wheat crop, and plot logic and clarity to the demands of its real interest lies elsewhere. soldiers appear in the waving corn as a character discrimination and engagingly helicopter circles above. In a nicely anti- comic set pieces. However, there is a Without being too solemn about it, the climactic touch, its function proves to be backlog of films in the mode which war- film draws its strength from the trajectory no more dangerous than the delivery of rants reappraisal, both individually and of Jimmy’s lurching from street barker to pizzas to the troops. The second of the as constituting a recognizable generic wholesome boat-builder in Queensland, protagonists is Chicago gangster Tony strand: these include Two Hands (1999), which is where he and Alex are headed (John Goodman), who, with offsider Sal Dirty Deeds (2002) Take Away and Bad at the film’s end. Ledger does a winning (Felix Williamson) is about to board an Eggs (2003). This is a male-dominated turn as an urban innocent who wants international flight with huge cabin lug- genre, with women barely getting a look something more out of life, mistakenly gage. Then the sight of Brown at home in, or if they are in evidence it’s inevitably views Pando’s offer as the opening he reassures us that we are going to be in support of—or ignorance of—some needs, gets into a more dangerous on familiar territory; the strands come scam the blokes have dreamed up. league than he can handle and painfully together when Barry meets his nephew What’s needed, in the interests of gender (and the script is really not too convinc- at Sydney airport, and Tony and his mate balance, is a female character as enter- ing about this) gets himself out of it. arrive at their Sydney hotel. Uncle Barry prising as, say, Tracey Ullman’s in Small Even behind a balaclava in the botched sends young Darcy off to make contact Time Crooks. But this isn’t a notably bank robbery, he keeps our attention on with them and to see what sort of coop- Australian failing. Who can, for instance, his worried eyes. Director/writer Jordan erative deal might be set up in relation to recall the women or the roles they played generally, though, keeps the plot line the city’s pokies trade.