This got made because Michael Thornhill was on the board of the NSWFC and so had an "in", Roadshow made money on Petersen and so loved Jack Thompson, I think funding bodies thought "it's time we made a light comedy and here's one" and it sounded fun - "Jack Thompson as a rapscallion".
It's terrible.
This feels like a first draft, a vomit draft. The sort of thing entered in the Monte Millers.
Why didn't they get David Williamson to give it a pass?
You sense it'll be bad from the opening credits -played over scenes of Sydney Harbour, but the water isn't blue and the credits go on and on. They can't even get the credits right. I mean, just have pretty pictures of Sydney and keep it short. But all these people get their own card eg Stewart Wagstaff.
The story is dumb and confusing.
Thompson is bad.
Okay what I liked
- Elizabeth Alexander is beautiful and tries
- I like Candy Raymond who pops in at the end
- Don McAlpine is a good cinematographer
- Sam Neill does well
- there is camp in seeing Jack Thompson at the disco
- it shows the sexual desires of elder women eg Carol Raye, Margot Lee
What doesn't work
- the film keeps changing what it's about - he goes to Hong Kong, then he's a journalist, then he's doing a government job then he's a journalist
- he's a bad journalist writes lousy copy can't type and doesn't investigate
- it's unclear what his relationship is like with Liz Alexander - they're together, she's pregnant, but she never seems that intohim
- the references to other movies and films eg Shampoo, Annie Hall - just make me angry at Thornhill's ineptness
- no sense of theme, of character
- no sexy, no nudity, no jokes, Thompson can't even get it up for two women (why include this)
- it was a scandal this was made
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