What can you say about an Aussie film that's blokey enough to throw what approaches character maturation or maturity onto the editing floor?
It's not as if The Hard Word is a hard nosed gangster film like for instance Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The Hard Word has a much softer touch and its main characters were just aching for some sort of real happiness. Call me a sentimentalist.
In The Hard Word we're given three fairly likable brothers. Two of them are emotionally immature and they are offered compassionate women who are promptly discarded by the film's script! The Hard Word badly needed those female characters.
The third brother's wife is as she says in the script `a c**t.' She sports a manly swagger that would do the boys proud. No chance for real tenderness there.
The tone of the film is fairly soft but it's not matched by the script. Often tough guy films can be exciting, Chopper presents itself immediately, but whereas the Eric Bana character in Chopper was violent, sad and funny, the five hard central characters in The Hard Word are unreservedly macho, immature and shallow, including Carol played by Rachel Griffiths. It's back of the shelter shed male fantasy rubbish.
The Hard Word isn't a tough guy film but it acts like one. In Chopper, Chopper's gal Tania played by Kate Beehan, a prostitute with a heart added great pathos and depth. There was ample opportunity for the same in The Hard Word, especially from Kate Atkinson as a drunken Melbourne Cup reveler. She of course was quickly and disappointingly dumped from the script.
Similarly a ridiculous scene involving a sexual relationship between a prison psychologist (Rhondda Findleton) and her patient showed some promise, I suppose, but she soon departed. That psychologist could have ended up deliciously surreal.
The Hard Word, in spite of strong performances from Guy Pierce, Joel Edgerton, Damien Richardson and Rachel Griffiths is misdirected and badly written.
It's yet another Australian film with a poorly realised script and it won't have universal appeal. It's not funny or shocking enough to overcome it's essential bleakness. Immature male fantasies belong on the high school playground.
2 Aussie Blow Flys Out Of Five
It's not as if The Hard Word is a hard nosed gangster film like for instance Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The Hard Word has a much softer touch and its main characters were just aching for some sort of real happiness. Call me a sentimentalist.
In The Hard Word we're given three fairly likable brothers. Two of them are emotionally immature and they are offered compassionate women who are promptly discarded by the film's script! The Hard Word badly needed those female characters.
The third brother's wife is as she says in the script `a c**t.' She sports a manly swagger that would do the boys proud. No chance for real tenderness there.
The tone of the film is fairly soft but it's not matched by the script. Often tough guy films can be exciting, Chopper presents itself immediately, but whereas the Eric Bana character in Chopper was violent, sad and funny, the five hard central characters in The Hard Word are unreservedly macho, immature and shallow, including Carol played by Rachel Griffiths. It's back of the shelter shed male fantasy rubbish.
The Hard Word isn't a tough guy film but it acts like one. In Chopper, Chopper's gal Tania played by Kate Beehan, a prostitute with a heart added great pathos and depth. There was ample opportunity for the same in The Hard Word, especially from Kate Atkinson as a drunken Melbourne Cup reveler. She of course was quickly and disappointingly dumped from the script.
Similarly a ridiculous scene involving a sexual relationship between a prison psychologist (Rhondda Findleton) and her patient showed some promise, I suppose, but she soon departed. That psychologist could have ended up deliciously surreal.
The Hard Word, in spite of strong performances from Guy Pierce, Joel Edgerton, Damien Richardson and Rachel Griffiths is misdirected and badly written.
It's yet another Australian film with a poorly realised script and it won't have universal appeal. It's not funny or shocking enough to overcome it's essential bleakness. Immature male fantasies belong on the high school playground.
2 Aussie Blow Flys Out Of Five