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.

"The Club" by David Williamson was an excellent play which addressed many issues about the changing face of sport. This particular film does justice to the play by having actors that give solid and believable performances. If you have seen the play, you may not enjoy certain aspects of this film, but the use of more then a single room or set adds a new dimension to the story. Footage of actual games as well as real club locations is added. Perhaps the best part of this film is the ending as it is very true and satisfying. Worth watching - even if you have no interest in the sport of Aussie Rules.

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.

*****/*****

Again David Williamson has shone, and showed us how his plays become gem movies. If you're a footy player, you're gonna love this movie cause you'll relate with it. C'mon, let's face it, every footy player is expendable. What's happening here, is just buck passing. What I loved about Jack Thompson's character, the best player in this one, is he shoots straight from the hip. It's such an effective performance, you'd think he really was footballer. Frank Wilson and Graham Kennedy, (sorry, Kennedy, a slimy captain is the best performer here) are the representatives of this team, who signed on a new player, yes John Howard in his much thinner days, who'd rather watch a seagull, then kick a ball. Howard, the comic in this tale, too sees through this dirty game, where a score of good players are removed, so the club fights back. It's great when Howard pulls Wilson's chain, with a childhood story. The happy ending that will send hearts appeased, will make you howl with victory, it's message of fighting back, has never hit harder. Watch this for Kennedy's finest moment as the great actor and legendary icon he was.

A very good if not wholly accurate film about aussie rules football. The characters are in most cases larger than life but are on the whole believable. The backstabbing and wrangling is as you imagine it to be and the dislike of the board by the players is tangible. You will laugh and cry at the antics of the Magpie`s. Watch it, you won`t regret it.