Dirty Deeds and Good Clean Fun: Some Recent Australian Caper Movies

Home , David Wenham, Gary Sweet, Kestie Morassi, Rose Byrne

BRIAN McFARLANE

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. in The Sting? straightforward, and rewards us with a sense of the texture of lives lived like this. The paradigmatic relationship between Gregor Jordan’s Two Hands in fact of- Bryan Brown, now a weathered icon (as the aging hard man and the tyro recalls fers a semi-exception to this rule. Not they say) of Australian cinema, who can Two Hands, as does Barry’s home life that Rose Byrne (it is hard to avoid her trace his film lineage back to the likes of (Toni Collette is sharp and funny as his these days, and, indeed, why would one the 1970s heist film, The Money Movers tough, gum-chewing, bouffant wife) want to?) is given all that much to do (1979), makes a tasty meal of the role and his treacherous thuggish associate, as country-girl Alex giving the city a try, of gang boss who one minute is order- resonantly named Hollywood (William but the romance between her and Heath ing some very nasty retributive action McInnes). Again, the young man can’t Ledger is allowed more screen time than and the next playing scrabble with his bring himself quite to the criminal stick- is usual in the caper film, and for a few young son, while his bimbo wife wafts ing-point: Heath Ledger’s Jimmy heads moments, when they are temporarily safe around the living-room in a flimsy lime- for the far north; Worthington’s Darcy from the thugs who are after him, they green ensemble. There are genuinely can’t carry out Barry’s instructions to kill are even rather touching in their youth. funny moments (a killing fails because Hollywood. Further, and this is also part But Jordan’s film points to one of the one thug has accidentally put the bullets of the template for these caper movies, problems with Australian caper films: through the washing machine) and these the young man falls for a pretty young it isn’t sure enough in tone to be able keep the tone from becoming as black woman, in this case unfortunately Barry’s to accommodate the level of violence as its bursts of bloody violence threaten mistress Margot (Kestie Morassi), and and death that comes in the wake of its to make it. It starts dark and brutal and in this (predictable) structural ploy we hectic plotting. Jimmy (Ledger), street ends sunny, and in between it is a savvy are meant to see some kind of positive. promoter for a Kings Cross strip-show, local version of the comedy-crime-caper. Perhaps Darcy will follow Tony’s advice is offered—by his standards—a lucrative If it is too leisurely to be wholly exhilarat- about not wasting his life and will take job by drug boss and happily married ing, it on occasion offers a compensating up pizza-making, just as Jimmy in Two family man Pando (Bryan Brown). Well, rumination on the genre: the character Hands is last seen heading north to Jimmy decides to have a swim when the glossings seem less merely jokey ap- become a boat-builder with his girl- woman he’s meant to hand over $10,000 pendages than acknowledgment that friend’s uncle. In both films, one has to to doesn’t answer the door; two kids nick caper chaps may have more in their lives wonder whether these brief hints of moral the cash while he’s cooling down; and for than just capers. reclamation really do work affirmatively the rest of the film Jimmy is preoccupied, or whether they sentimentally undermine

50 • Metro Magazine No. 140 the films’ caperish toughness. What has Tarquin about Burgie’s food, ‘I don’t eat plenty of entertainment along the way in gone before, in each case, has been that crap’. A strategy meeting of Tony the form of set pieces, like that in which some bone-crunching violence of a kind and Trev, Sonja and Dave, leads to a trip a suavely coiffed and coutured Premier that goes well beyond the comic-strip to Sydney to put the case and finally (Shaun Micallef), in league with corrupt demands of the action—Dirty Deeds, in to the caper element which takes over cop brass Pratt (Bill Hunter), is spirited particular, is so visually and aurally taxing the film’s last third. Dave has infiltrated out of Parliament House by Ben and Mike that it seems more like an onslaught than Burgie’s as the gang’s mole and Trev’s and taken to a Calder Highway rendez- entertainment—so that one wonders if mate Ken (Brett Swain) lends his truck’s vous with a vanload of gunmen. There’s a the filmmakers are having last-minute pulling services. The caper is entirely in touch of Western showdown, intensified anxieties about whether, perhaps, they’ve comic mode and as the manager drives by Dave Graney and Clare Moore’s score, gone too far. Neither film has that sure to work next morning he’s forced off the in this sequence in which the Premier grasp of a light-hearted tone that char- road by his own building coming towards and Julie (Lucy)—journalist, ex-cop and acterizes the best caper films; neither, him. The caper kicks in late in the nar- by now Ben’s girlfriend—walk towards equally, seems prepared to forgo the rative, and the film suffers from this: it their respective rescuers. Bad Eggs savagery of some of its encounters, takes a dawdling long time to get down engages in some satire about corrupt so that the ray of hope held out for the to business, relying on incidental comic police methods and venal politicians, but fresh-faced youngsters seems not much pleasures (like the bit about Tony and its real success lies in the way it estab- more than a sop. Trev’s father’s having fallen out years ago lishes its central pair as a viable comedy over the place of pineapple in a burger), combination. Ben has to try hard to be After another failed caper, involving and the romantic pair are unlikely on the a match for the sardonic Julie; Mike has the pulling away of half a shop in Marc surface and the plotting doesn’t do much a wife who has introduced him to the Gracie’s Take Away (2003), the young to make their alliance more convincing. joys of tantric sex; but essentially the romantic leads are left at the end of the Again, though, an Australian caper film comic appeal of Ben and Mike is that of film, literally, to mind the store. They looks to young love for a positive—and inept characters always thinking they’ve are Sonja (Rose Byrne again) and Dave overlooks the genre’s chief narrative and outwitted the seriously dangerous chaps. (Nathan Phillips), trainee managers for character strengths which lie elsewhere. Ineptitude may well be a key ingredient rival stores in a country-town shop- of caper film protagonists: it doesn’t pre- ping strip. These stores are owned ‘Elsewhere’ is where Tony Martin’s clude genuine excitements but it keeps respectively by control freak Tony (Vince Bad Eggs (2003), tonally more coher- us comfortably on their side. Arguably Colosimo) and slobbish Trev (Stephen ent than any of the foregoing, locates the toughest-minded capers couldn’t Curry), and most of the film’s fun comes its strengths. Instead of pretty kids as care less about this; you can’t imagine from the contrasts of style between romantic and moral focus, here we have Tarantino caring where our sympathies lie them. Tony instructs Sonja in the arts of the appealingly shopworn team of Mike in Reservoir Dogs (1992). ‘Drink-fridge can-rotation’ whereas Trev Molloy and Judith Lucy (Crackerjack co- tries to excite the none-too-bright Dave stars), who spar so well together and, to The most recent Australian entry in with the prospect of ‘Fish finger kebabs’. the tune of the Rogers and Hart classic, the genre is Teplitzky’s Gettin’ Square Tony and Trev’s rivalry is clearly headed ‘Where or when’, capitulate wittily. The (2003) and it brings together several key for Ealing-type solidarity when the food film is off to a very funny start when a recurring elements of the caper film. The chain ‘Burgie’s’ sets up next door to Tony middle-aged guy in a suit gets into his police force is corrupt; there’s a nice and a couple of doors from Trev, under Merc, takes out photos of himself with a young romantic couple; there’s a syba- the managership of a young tyrant (Mat- scantily clad girl, tosses off a whisky and ritic big-time crim; and the caper, set on thew Dyktynski) who announces, by way commits suicide, falling on the park brake the glitzy Gold Coast and involving the of encouraging his protégé Tarquin (Tom and causing the car to careen down hill three recently ‘out’ ex-cons and bent, Budge), ‘Those who stand in our way will through crowded streets until it comes as it were, on goin’ straight, is messily be crushed’. to rest in the fountain of a shopping mall. complicated. Teplitzky’s triumph is to To add to the mayhem, Ben (Molloy) and make the familiar ingredients seem new, The scenario of little guys up against a Mike (Bob Franklin), two members of or at least stir them around in unexpected big corporation invokes not only the spirit the Victorian Police elite Zero Tolerance directions. Like Welcome to Collinwood, of such Ealing ventures as Passport to Unit, empty their revolvers into the dead it opens with a very incompetent gang Pimlico (1949) but also that of the recent magistrate at the wheel. The film follows which turns out to be in the wrong place, local success, Crackerjack (2002), in their (mis)fortunes as they are demoted to after which the film switches to ‘6 months which a suburban bowling club resists uniform work again, but are determined earlier’, for the first of several very funny a big-business steamrollering. There’s to uncover the mystery surrounding the scenes involving David Wenham as Spit. a Memorial Hall meeting for the citi- magistrate’s death. A drug-addicted dimwit, accoutred with zenry to air its views and for Burgie’s to thongs, floral shirts and stubbies, he has counter protest with ‘A Burgie’s chicken Like many caper films, Bad Eggs is none a way of reducing solemn assemblages is a happy chicken’, in sharp contrast too clear from moment to moment about to tatters. In his dealings with a parole tri- to the manager’s later terse reply to who is after whom or what, but it offers bunal, he is asked what he’s learnt inside

Metro Magazine No. 140 • 51 and offers such wisdom as: ‘If you can’t hard to care much about this young innate goodness in human nature. Espe- do the time, you can’t do the crime’ and crime vet. Dave Hoskin is right when he cially when all the best cards have been how you should get to the scene of the says ‘Worthington is surrounded by more dealt to the picturesque thugs and the crime on time, etc. Later on, his incapac- flamboyant characters and struggles to devious lawmen who sometimes pursue ity to keep to the subject and his fretting make an impression’. 3 Certainly with them, sometimes collude with them, and about lunch vouchers, drives the court in Wenham on one side and Spall on the sometimes do both. which he is a witness to incredulity and other, and with Sweet and David Field (a distraction. Wenham’s is a great comic deeply corrupt cop) hovering, there’s not Brian McFarlane, an Honorary Associ- performance and would alone justify a much scope for fresh-faced juveniles. But ate Professor at Monash University, has much less dextrous piece of work than it’s not just Worthington; it’s the func- recently compiled The Encyclopedia of Gettin’ Square. tion of this character in the caper genre. British Film (Methuen/BFI, 2003), now re- It’s as though we’d think the filmmakers printing. He is co-authoring a book on the The other two just ‘out’ are Barry (Sam lacked any sort of moral perspective if British ‘B’ movie. • Worthington, doing his likeable young they didn’t suggest some sort of ‘square’ lead again, as in Dirty Deeds, and find- hope for youth and young love’s dream. Endnotes ing tentative romance with his younger Most often, it lowers the temperature of 1 S. Dermody, S. and L. Jacka, The brother’s social worker) and Darren (Brit- films that would be better off following Screening of Australia: Anatomy of ish actor Timothy Spall), obsessed with their baser instincts. a National Cinema, Currency press, weight loss but so chronically venal he 1988, pp.28ff. can’t resist cheating the weight-watch- For a cinema that has often seemed 2 This concept and, indeed, a remark ers. Sympathy is solicited for Barry who’s to hold itself above generic traditions, very like it were the work of someone been released because his mother has though, these recent Australian ventures I can no longer remember or find, and died and he wants to provide support in the caper mode have scored more hits would be glad to be reminded of. for his brother—and keep clear of the than misses. You’d think a culture that 3 Dave Hoskin, ‘Lookin’ for credit in the criminal clutches of Chicka (a lethal prides itself on a laconic unsentimentality straight world’, Metro, No. 139, p.17. comedy sketch from Gary Sweet), but would take to it like a duck to water and as in the other films discussed here it’s wouldn’t need to reassure us about the

52 • Metro Magazine No. 140