The Club

An Aussie cult classic. Although a fictional story it is set in a real VFL (now AFL) club, Collingwood, one of the biggest sporting clubs in Australia (as a Carlton man it hurts me to say that :)). Shot on location at Collingwood's home ground of Victoria Park it features real Magpie footballers of the era, including Rene Kink. All of game footage, with the exception of those featuring John Howard is actual game footage from VFL game of the time & featuring many Melbourne football identities including Lou Richards & Scotty Palmer.

I saw this when I was a teenager in the '80s when it was aired by the Beeb. It is an amusing and droll take on the '70s Aussie macho style. Mustachioed fairhaired Jim Thompson is highly professional as the coach. The abundant sun and light of Australia are astonishing. It is a stablemate to 'Goodbye Pork-pie' (1981) the hilarious and adventurous New Zealand road-movie.

A great little Aussie film that I would recommend to anyone interested in the above summary and should try and track down.

In spite of it being almost 20 years old it doesn't feel in anyway dated, except for the fashion & hair styles of course. But what we have is basically a struggling Aussie Rules football team, Collingwood (a real team by the way, filmed on location at their stadium), coping with boardroom power struggles & player mutinies while the under achieving coach tries to get the team to the championship finals by the end of the season.

Okay, so this kind of scenario has been done to death by a great many Hollywood movies but there's something rather special with this Aussie gem. The mixture of comedy & drama is just right, preventing the film from either drifting to one extreme (excessive political dogma) or to the other extreme of sheer lampoon & farce.

The much under-rated Jack Thompson plays Laurie, the coach of the Collingwood team, greatly admired by his players but despised by certain members of the board for his lack of team discipline & dearth of any trophies.

Thompson's true nemesis is Frank Wilson, as Jock. An old time footballer & coach, but is now part of the board with a host of trophies to his name. Yet gets bouts of jealousy as soon as anyone tries to usurp his achievements, and that's why he's got it in for Thomspon.

Jock also has it in for the Chairman of the club, Ted (Graham Kennedy), who although loves the club and has seen every single game since he was a kid, has little or no political experience with Collingwood and only got his position through clever negotiation. In essence his true job is nothing more than an owner of a meat pie factory.

If Jock can somehow create a scandal against Ted so that Ted has to resign, then he'll be able to become the new Chairman and complete his ambition with the club and sack those who he dislikes rightly or wrongly.

Snuggling alongside Jock is Gerry (Alan Cassell) as the club's chief administrator, who is cunning & spends most of his time playing off both Ted's & Laurie's weaknesses so that he can gain from a position of strength.

And that's just the conflict in the boardroom! There's still the problems on the pitch with the players going on strike every five minutes or the club's most expensive purchase spending all his time smoking dope and convincing himself he's too good for an average team like Collingwood.

All the main actors excel in their parts; there's no driftwood here. Bruce Beresford keeps everything nicely focused without having to complicate matters with too many sub-plots or excessive bouts of boardroom politics.

Although the ending is perhaps a little too predictable and even if you're not fully versed on the rules of Australian Rules Football, don't worry, just take it easy and watch the fun & froth.

highly recommended.

*****/*****

I first saw "The Club" in high school as the play the film was based on was part of the English required reading list. I enjoyed the film but thought that with the Australian Rules Football setting, people unfamiliar with the sport would find many of the references obscure and dislike the film. Having seen "The Club" again recently, I realised that although somewhat dated, the film is as much about the wheeling and dealing that occurs off the field as it is about the action on the field. The action that takes place in the boardroom would be instantly familiar to fans of any sport and it's in these scenes the movie comes to life. Any producer wanting to remake "The Club" with the American market in mind needs only to replace the references to Australian Rules football with baseball or basketball and the script would be ready to go into production.

The Producers would also be wise to recast Jack Thompson as the coach as he gives a great understated performance that deserves an encore.

Certainly worth a viewing on a wintry evening.

This is simply a great Aussie film. Unfortunately, films are just not made this way anymore. Not only is it a great satire about a football club, which has probably not changed in 30 years, it is also a wonderful commentary on the commercialization of sport. Comparisons to sport and war are easy after seeing this film. Great performances from Jack Thompson, John Howard and Graham Kennedy as well as cameos from a few of Australia's footballing legends. Bruce Beresford's direction is superb, the theme song became legend and the film is one hilarious argument. It gets better every time you watch it and if you haven't seen it yet, you have to see it soon.