c_cooper

This show has some potential but it's downfall lies with unoriginal characters that don't work.

I believe the 'inspiration' for some of the characters came from other shows. Examples include 'Strange Bob', a football commentator who hears voices in his head. This is obviously copied from the 'Small kids in the park, jumpers for goal posts' man from the Fast Show who babbels unrelated talk all the time. The character just doesn't work with Enfield sounding like that kid at school who tried to be funny by repeating a joke that was just told.

Then theres the guy in the restaurant who insults his partner and says "What? What did I say?" at the end. This is obviously taken from Goodness Gracious Me who has 'Mr Cheque Please', a man insults dates in restaurants and says "Cheque please" after he realises what he's done.

Another character I believe has been stolen is again from the Fast Show. This is the guy who always tells outrageous stories and says "Which was nice" at the end. Hazza obviously took this idea and put it into that guy at the pub who always tells how he fondled some female celebrity to make her feel better. This character was hilarious at first but got really uninteresting after a while.

Having said this, some characters are genuinely funny, such as the pharmacist who always embarrasses his customers by obnoxiously announcing their problems to everyone. A classic example is when a man comes in and buys some viagra whereupon the pharmacist shouts "Here you are sir, some viagra for your droopy cock!".

Overall though, the show doesn't seem to work. The lack of one off sketches increases the chance of boring viewers as we sit through watching each character, knowing exactly what the jist of the sketch will be. Although repeating one's self is inevitable with character based sketch comedy, it's upto the writers to produce different situations and punchlines each time so that the viewer doesn't end up short changed. Unfortunatly Harry Enfield and his crew fail to do this.

This film truly is a Barry Crocker. It follows the misfortune of a group of soon-to-be film school graduates who decide to finish a film that abandoned many years before because the cast and crew were murdered.

So here begins the mediocrity. As they start filming (at an old mansion in the beautiful Adelaide hills), one by one everyone gets their heads chopped off or slashed. One of the main characters even gets her head crushed in an automatic wood chopping device (although all you see is a tonne of blood splatter against the window). It follows the tired, cheap and tacky formula of many horror films before it.

So unless you like these sorts of films don't bother with this one, it may be good for a laugh but really, it was a waste of time. Kylie Minogue fans may also be disappointed as she only appears in the first 5 minutes of the film.

(On another note, it's interesting, as a resident near where the film was shot, to see the geographical faults in the film. In particular, the part where they take the bus upto the mansion for the first time. It shows them heading out of Adelaide heading towards Thebarton (ie the sea), then a shot of Molly Ringwald driving in the country (looks like wine country), then they all pull into a motel on Glen Osmond road! (couple of Km's north of Adelaide CBD, nowhere near the hills). The mansion is actually in Bridgewater, about 20km's out of Adelaide. I know it wasn't the intention of the film makers to be accurate with this however.)

I was pleased to see another new Australian series coming to TV. Unfortunatly Above the Law didn't live up to my expectation. Shoddy looking sets and some average acting just ruined what could have been a fairly decent show. It was these elements that got in the way of a storyline with potential.