El gran golpe

I loved The Hard Word and was wrapped in the totality of the experience that showed none of the shortcomings as related by others who commented on this film.

I thought that the scripting and direction of Scott Roberts was very good: the inevitability of the consequences that unraveled as the script progressed had a Shakespearian inevitability about it As a viewer I sat watching this all too real story unfold knowing nothing good was going to happen for any player in this strange dance of death but being powerless to change any of the pieces that formed the inescapable conclusion to all that would befall the players.

The script worked itself out without being forced through the Hollywood funnel which can do little but transform reality into something palatable

for the mid-American diet: movies as a metaphor for fast food.

With lots of holiday time on my hands, decided to tape this and watch later. Didn't particularly want to see it, but figured it was worth a chance.

The story is about 3 bank-robbing brothers, caught up in a mess with a bunch of crooked cops. They basically keep spending time between robbing banks and prison. When a huge heist opportunity comes their way, revolving around the Melbourne Cup, they see their chance to get out for good with a nice lump sum of cash money.

The cast is solid, featuring Guy Pearce (Mike from "Neighbours"), Joel Edgerton and Rachel Griffiths, the storyline is OK, but the story just bugged me. The language is pretty rough, there's some odd sexual content and the movie really starts to drag. A lot more effort should have gone into the heist scenes than some of the stuff they dabbled in (eg relationships, mental health, salmonella) with no depth, making it pointless.

Had potential, but went nowhere.

"The Hard Word" is a gritty, sexy, Australian take on the double-crossing heist movie.

We get to hear Guy Pearce (long-haired and greasy) and Rachel Griffiths (blonde and wet) go native in their accents in an entertainingly original script by first-time director Scott Roberts.

While not the first film to have quirky brothers-in-crime as the comfortable loyalty fulcrum, the familial psychological pathologies make for a nice counterpoint to the friends', foes', and femme fatale's twists and turns. There's more jokes and ironic humor than even the violence, which helps to block out some quizzical plot turns.

The movie never tells us that the title is Ozzie slang, among other blunt phrases used throughout (such as the tendency of Ozzie blokes to affectionately call each other the "c" word). My Down Under friend Bronwyn translates (used with her permission): "In it's 'ultimate' usage it means to pressure someone for sex. If you were talking to a girlfriend who went out on a date with someone new, you might ask 'did he put the hard word on?' However, it is sometimes also used just in a general sense of exerting pressure. In fact, it was in a headline in our local suburban paper ("The Leader") yesterday: 'Minister puts the hard word on district pollies [politicians].' An article about the State Minister for Local Government pushing the local councils to sort out boundary reforms."

One of those films I found myself liking a lot, but it's difficult to say exactly why. The Hard Word has a little bit of everything going at once - heist film, love story, comedy, and drama. It could be (and was) marketed as a thriller about lowlife criminals, double crosses and crime not paying - in other words an obvious Australian-style Tarantino rip-off like the boring and derivative "Two Hands". However it seems to take its cues more from the kind of slower paced, character-based crime movies that were popular from the 70's.

Often movies like this one choose style over substance, and skitter along on simplistic scripts and dumb dialogue. Not the case here at all-The Hard Word has enough going in both departments to keep you more than interested and entertained, a credit to writer/director Scott Roberts. The music in this film is also worth mentioning - it's very good and matches the style of the film perfectly.

What makes the movie special is an amazing, low-key performance from Guy Pearce, whose talent becomes more evident every time he graces the screen. Playing one of three incorrigible but non-violent bank robbing brothers, he manages to make his character watchable, interesting and original. Co-star Rachel Griffiths plays his sneaky, trashy, two-timing wife; her performance is not quite up to Pearce's, but doesn't do anything to weigh the film down, and most of the other actors are top-notch.

I don't think this film did much business in the US (yet another indie that probably played on about three screens and no one heard about), but I predict it will find an audience on video and could even become a bona fide cult classic.

This film demonstrates a larrikin-ness that differentiates Australian films within a genre from their American equivalents. There are some scenes that are Tarantino-like, but I don't think that there is meant to be any real comparison. There is a lightness here and what appears to be a refusal to take itself seriously as a genre piece.

The main performances are stand-out, especially Guy Pearce and Rachel Griffiths. However, some of the minor characters appear to be there only to support plot movement. The best of these is Kate Atkinson as a ditzy blonde, but the rest are cardboard-cutout caricatures.

From an Australian perspective, it was nice to see Paul Sonkilla reprising his police hardman roles from some of my favourite TV series, although he appears to be slightly typecast.

I found the cinematography and the sound production quite well done and overall I really enjoyed this regardless of the small flaws, which end up looking more like positive traits - keeping the feel of the movie real and not produced to death, which is a problem I find with so many Hollywood films.