The Wog Boy

Steve is a Greek man living in Australia since his family emigrated there many years prior. Since being teased as a `Wog Boy' in school, he has decided to live a Wog boy and be proud of his heritage. A run in with the Minister for Education sees him portrayed on tv as a dole sponger, however, when he goes on the show to defend himself he comes off the better and becomes famous. The Minister employs Steve to help develop new policies on unemployment, but is that all she is after?

I was drawn to the film by the unusual title – it is not often you see a film that has a racist term in the title, and I assumed I could get all worked up about it in a Daily Mail type of way. Sadly for my middle-class rage, this film has so much self mocking energy that it is impossible to be offended by it. The downside of all this energy is that it doesn't manage to cover the fact that the film itself isn't actually very funny. The plot is, well, pointless, which leaves it only with ethnic stereotypes from which to draw it's humour.

These stereotypes are actually pretty funny at times, but I suggest this film will generally appeal to those who identified with My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Outside of these the film has little to do and fills it's time with shouting and hand waving to keep the energy high. I enjoyed watching it as I was coming off a bad day of food poisoning and needed something silly and energetic to raise my spirits but I must admit that I did notice that I wasn't actually laughing very much at all.

The cast are pretty good I guess, despite all being cartoon characters in one way or another. Giannopoulos is enjoyable as Steve and seems natural in the role, a side effect of writing it I suppose, but most of the rest fall into one ethnic stereotype or another.

Overall this has energy and is silly if that is what you want. If you have a background similar to these characters then you may get more from it. But it is hard not to notice just how few actual laughs there are in the 90 minutes.

`The Wog Boy' and `Head On' are both about aspects of the migrant experience of the Melbourne Greek-Australian community, but there the similarities end. While `Head On' was a frantic day in the life of a hyperactive drugged out sexual athlete, `Wog Boy' (where are the wog girls?) is the gentlest of comedies with characters and story lines familiar from a host of earlier Australian comedies – `The Castle' meets `Crocodile Dundee'.

The plot scarcely matters. Mild mannered wog boy Nick (Nick Giannopoulos), unemployed but the proud owner of a restored ‘69 Valiant, is exposed as a dole bludger on a TV show hosted by Darren Hinch (himself) and as a result becomes involved with unscrupulous female politician Raeleen (Geraldine Turner) and her attractive assistant Celia (Lucy Bell, looking gorgeous). Raeleen has plans to exploit Nick's image in a media campaign designed to get the unemployed back to work at lower wages. Nick, on the other hand just wants to carry on helping out at the Church bingo contest and helping Greek social beneficiary seekers make their cases to the unsympathetic bureaucracy. The bureaucrats are rightly unsympathetic since Nick's star client Theo is as a transparent a welfare fraudster as there is. Celia hates Nick at first sight (though it's lust at first sight for her sister and Nick's best mate Frank), a sure sign that they will get together eventually.

The movie's strong points are its dialogue and the supporting characters, who unlike the calm Nick, are satisfyingly comic in a manic kind of way. Frank the babe magnet (Vince Colosimo) with the bedroom wall covered with Polaroids of his conquests, Raeleen the lecherous minister who goes though chauffeurs like Kleenex, Theo the tireless fraudster, the Vietnamese pizza delivery boys who aspire to be latin lovers, Cousin Dominic the gambling pharmacist with the Speed lab in his basement, Yugoslav Tony the would-be Carlton drug baron, Shazza and Bazza the car-loving cops, and Darren the public servant nerd with a crush on Celia all provide us with a chuckle or two each. As to the dialogue, one line stood out. Tony, doing a spot of debt collection, says: `Listen. I'm half Serbian and half Croatian. When I wake up in the morning I want to kill myself. Give me my money!' Actually, Nick has a chat – up line that provides a running gag throughout the film but it would spoil it to repeat it here.

Old stereotypes are exhibited in a way that demonstrates that they have lost whatever power they had to determine outcomes for people. This tends to a tepid result – the migrant battle for acceptance is virtually over, so we can all feel an inner warm glow at what an accepting and tolerant society we are. If only that could be said for our relationship with the aboriginal people.

This is a film which has been long overdue! I have seen the live performances of "Wog-A-Rama" and "WogBoys" twice each, and laughed the whole time! "The WogBoy" is a film I would definitely recommend especially if you are a "wog". Of course "Skippies" would find it humourous as well, but only wogs can totally relate to the stories and the lines and laugh themselves silly! Great performances by Nick Giannopoulos, Vince Colosimo, Abi Tucker & Geraldine Turner. Highly Recommended.

Being in the US, we tend to not get a lot of the foreign "ethnic" films. It's quite a shame. Wog Boy was quite pleasant. There was enough other story to avoid the "romantic comedy" trap, but in essence it seemed to me to be a lite romantic comedy. Don't let that detract. Nick Giannopoulos put together a story that was well constructed and executed. Of course, the characters are more "charicatures", but that's part of the fun.

Ethnic humour seems to be Nick Giannopoulos' forte, and subsequently 'The Wog Boy' is basically the movie version of his Australian television series, and his stage plays. Where all 3 mediums rely on ethnic humour, and being Greek is the subject of them. Granted, this film came out before the American affair 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding', yet the latter film was more convincing as a romantic comedy and as a movie. 'The Wog Boy' doesn't really work in that respect, and when I viewed this film, it felt like Nick Giannopoulos was simply rehashing the ethnic jokes in his earlier mediums.

Still, 'The Wog Boy' is good for a few laughs, but you won't find any substance to this film, nor will you find it that memorable. Vince Colosimo is a welcome addition, but he was better in 'Chopper'. I don't think Nick G. is movie star material, but considering this film came out in 2000, and he has only done 'The Wannabes' in 2003, this film hasn't really advanced his career. Still, saying that, 'The Wog Boy' is above average, yet quite forgettable.

*** out of *****!