No spoilers are possible for this movie - let's face it, the promos give it away. Boys find nugget, boys lose nugget, boys lose friends, boys find .... well, they find a lot of things. But moving on, I have two personal glimpses here that you might find of interest.
1. My wife and I own a rural property near Mudgee, where this film was made, and we have travelled much in this area. So from personal experience I can tell you that the countryside that you saw in this film is really every bit as spectacular and wild as it appears. The producers of the film wouldn't have had to look very far or wide to find the place that they did. It's ALL like that!!!
2. Someone made a comment previously about that "they don't make helicopters that small". Well, unlikely as it seems, they do: there was a McDonalds commercial made a couple of years ago that had two tiny remote controlled helicopters in it. That commercial was made in my street. The tiny helicopter scenes in it are "real": I saw them being made. So I now have no trouble believing that they could have used something like this to film the aerial sequences, which yes, are absolutely spectacular.
I also have serious doubts a previous reviewer's comment about that this film would go well overseas. Much of the humour, the language, the situation scenes are very very local Australian in nature, and I am extremely skeptical that they would carry over to other countries, even to other English speaking ones like Britain or the United States. Given how (for example) Norman Gunston was not all that well understood overseas, I can't see that the characters in this movie would fare any better.
Peter Moon seems to have well and truly typecast himself as a caricature of the most disgusting Australian male ever to be filmed, but in a humourous context rather than a "gross" one. Everytime he came on, I couldn't help but think of that immortal line from his "Good morning, Moscow" gags: "Oh Victor... you very unattractive man".
I was a little disappointed that the women cast as the characters wives were cast as "just wives". I would have liked to have seen Belinda Emmett given the opportunity to see if she really is anything more than just a "soapie chick".
Despite all the seeming negatives, I thought it was a very funny movie. Certainly it had that "working dog" look about it; but given the main actors and their backgrounds, there was also a lot of "Fast Forward" and "Full Frontal" about it as well. I would have loved to have seen Steve Vizard given a part in this movie.
Several of Max Cullen's lines, especially the ones where he sets the rather unusual price on his gold lease, suggest that there may well be a sequel. To quote another ad: "I'd like to see that"!!!!!!
