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The Hard Word - 6/27/03 - R - 102m - DVD
Guy
Pearce - Dale Twentyman
Rachel Griffiths - Carol Twentyman
Robert Taylor - Frank
Director: Scott Roberts
Screenplay by: Scott Roberts
Studio: Lions Gate Films
Official
Website
JEF
Ok, I know, they are speaking English, but I’ve never had
such a difficult time understanding their accents.
Storyline: 3 crooks; Dale (Guy Pearce), Shane (Joel Edgerton),
and Mal (Damien Richardson), who also happen to be 3 brothers are in jail.
It’s a rather strange situation but there seems to be a conspiracy
among these three crooks, and their lawyer Frank (Robert Taylor) and the
warden of the jail. The 3 crooks go in and rob a bank, in return for favorable
treatment within jail, a split of the money goes to frank, a split to
the warden, and a split to some other shady characters who we really don’t
get to meet. After a bit of backstabbing, and twists, the boys are out
again to pull off a final big job. But this time it’s just between
them, and their lawyer Frank.
I won’t go into further detail on the storyline, as that’s
half the fun of this movie is to try and figure out what’s going
on.
I almost gave this film a green light, but it just didn’t quite
make it there. The budget must have been a little low, for example the
gunshot effects looked like a B-movie with ketchup used instead of a good
Karo-Syrup blood mixture. This was a minor point as there isn’t
too much bloodshed in the movie, but still it looked like a lame effect.
Perhaps my biggest hurdle for this film was the accents. What was supposed
to be an Australian accent was very much comparable to a heavy British
accent. I usually don’t have this much a problem with accents, but
I almost wished the movie were subtitled. 
Guy Pearce, who has appeared in movies like “The Count of Monte
Cristo”, and “Memento”, and “Ravenous”,
really carried this film. His character was a typical rough guy thug,
with his slicked back greasy hair, but Pearce did a really good job playing
this character. Perhaps one of the things I liked about the character
was that he seemed to have a real intelligence about him, and wasn’t
just a dumb crook.
The storyline was a bit confusing at times, and maybe it was due to the
fact that I was struggling with the dialogue, but nothing too complicated
that you can’t catch up with.
There was a sort of sub-plot in the film that dealt with Dale’s
wife Carol (Rachel Griffiths), but to be honest, I really wasn’t
interested in this. I don’t know if it was Rachel’s acting,
or that it was fairly obvious in the story who was cheating on who, that
it just seemed to take up too much time, with dale worrying about who
might be cheating with his wife.
All in all, I’d say give this movie a rent on DVD if you’re
looking to take up a weeknight rather than watch some stupid TV shows.
The movie does have some shortcomings, and the accents are a struggle,
but still it was a good crime style movie.
Jef
