CHARLIE & BOOTS (REVIEW)
Essentially,
this is an inoffensive and at times very sweet road movie that does wonders for
Tourism Australia.
Paul Hogan returns to the big screen in
a role not unfamiliar to what we have seen him play before, the likable jokester.
He is a rather good choice to play Charlie, a recent widower who runs a farm.
His estranged son Boots is played by Shane Jacobson, best known for his larger
than life toilet cleaning character, Kenny, he also is an inspired casting choice.
Being the sympathetic son that he is, Boots basically wants to help out his grieving
dad and reconnect their own relationship. In an old Kingswood no less, together
they embark on a rather extensive journey together.
To fulfil
a lifelong dream of going fishing from the country's most northern tip, the pair
travel from Victoria, through NSW, up to Queensland to finally land in the remote
Cape York. The pair have chemistry for the most part, working very well together
on in the front seat bantering off regular amusing local references on a whim
and remarking on each town they visit. From the rural to the coast to the city,
they have an anecdote for everything. A run-in with a rather butch female truckie
is one of the most laugh out loud scenes. This in-turn becomes like a travelogue
for a cross country expedition aimed solely for an international audience.
It's
when they pick up, or actually she just jumps in, a young and spritely Jess, an
up 'n' coming country singer who's hitchhiking to Tamworth, that the film starts
to bounce. Jess is running away from a bad boyfriend to realise her dream. She
even sings her two new friends a song in a lovely moment after arriving in the
country music capital. Played by the outstanding Morgan Griffin, soon to be seen
opposite Geena Davis in a new film 'Accidents Happen', she is a breath of fresh
air and should go a very long way in her career.
Roy Billing,
a veteran Australian actor, is amusingly dry. He takes the boys on what turns
out to be a wild plane trip in an effort to help them reach their final destination
and go fishing. It's good to see a second Australian comedy on our screens in
successive weeks - there is a-lot of fun to be had in many of the obviously set
up, if not strained comical scenes and as mentioned before, the two leads are
good together.
I saw the film in a large audience which helped
with the crowd pleasing ambience. Stay on for a brief scene during the credits
when Hoges himself makes a sly remark about the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a place
he once famously worked.
Shane A. Bassett
