Metal Skin

I saw this ages ago but I still remember how realistic,gripping and thought provoking it was.The character of Joe,a social misfit and race driver wanna-be was brilliantly portrayed and is still probably the best performance I have ever seen of somebody truly at the end of their rope and the director gives the film a very nightmarish look.At first glimpse,this will come across as depressing and off-putting,but the performances are really brilliant and the film overall is magnificent.

What I remember about this movie after seeing it, was I wasn't a happy camper. Set in Melbourne, in dark dismal tones is a story of 4 messed up, disowned twenties sorts, well acted by all, especially the 'so underrated, it's no joke' Morice, as a real introverted, weird Ally Sheedy, Breakfast Club character. Garner has grown as an actress too, who just got better and better after this. Actually voted the most depressing film back in it's day, I don't remember any blood at all being shed, but the movie which I've only seen once, and I had been warned by others who had seen it, not to, just became an overlong bore. I wasn't affected or didn't care about the four twenty plus types, who did have the share of problems. I didn't care about the parents of these young adults who had nonchalant attitudes, hence their pride and joys, evolving like they have. No character in the movie was memorable, more dislikeable. The one thing I loved about Metal Skin besides it's title, was it's soundtrack. If separately rating this, I'd give it a nine, unlike it's movie which does have a strong intensity about it, in those four going nowhere characters, isolated from everyone around them, who'd you'd wanna shoot most of them. These four are the only real family, they've got. This is a disappointing feature in light of director Wright's still most powerful and best film, Romper Stomper.

Essentially a re-setting of the Arthurian stories in the context of an Australian subculture of lost, dope-addled car-obsessed young males, this is a compelling and disturbing look at how empty, disconnected lives can become focused on an arbitrary quest in order to find meaning. Cars playing 'chicken' substitutes for jousting, the quest for the ultimate turbo charger replaces the Holy Grail, a spell-casting bogan witch girl takes the role of Morgan Le Fay. The title probably comes from the line in John Boorman's equally bizarre Arthurian movie "Excalibur" - When Arthur questions whether Lancelot should leave his lands and people to serve him, Lancelot points to his armour and says "I gave up my castles, and my lands - my domain is here, inside this metal skin". Similarly the characters here are totally cut off from their families and any other human emotional connection, they carry their entire world around inside the metal skins of their cars.

If you've ever thought that in order to qualify as an Australian all you had to do was grow a pony-tail, spend the day bodyboarding down the beach and then wind down by drinking light beer at a BBQ while listening to The Offspring and Weezer, then this film tells you that you would be dead wrong! This grungy coming-of-age tale set in Melbourne, makes it clear that Australia is not ONLY populated by people who spend weekends listening to Counting Crows while tossing dwarves down bowling alleys - they have awkward teens and devil worshipping goths like we have as well. This story centres on four lost souls, including a couple of gearheads and a female Satanist who are drawn together in a fragile friendship - jealousies soon get in the way and, to cut a long story short, it all ends in tears. It's a fairly downbeat movie overall, with little hope or joy for the characters but they are well drawn and well-acted by the principals. It seems to have won awards, while not winning audiences which is often the way in movies such as this which don't prioritize being crowd pleasers.

This movie gives a pretty good feeling about what's like for a rev head growing up in the lower socio-economic suburbs in Australian cities. There's Joe, who is a bit of a loser, and lives with his Migrant father who has lost his marbles, and there's Daisy - a guy who is the winner character in this movie - that was a race car driver in another state in Australia, but came back after an incident that you will find out about in the movie. These two characters meet at a grocery packing warehouse where they both work, and form a friendship based on the fact that they both drive old Australian built Chrysler cars - Joe a beat up station wagon with home made mods, and daisy a grungy modified charger with off the shelf performance parts. This movie has many facets - it has romance of a sort, lots of jealousy, racial tension, witchcraft/ satanism, real human drama, some really tense action, and a story line and a quality of acting that allows the audience to emphasize fully with the colorful characters. The car action isn't a huge part of the movie, but the quality of it is up there with Ronin, and The Fast and The Furious. Well worth a look in my opinion.