Mr. Reliable

I tripped over this today & had never heard of it but I said "Hmmm, Colin Friel, comedy? Let's give 'er a shot". As the previous poster said, it's along the lines of The Castle, and a few others from Down Under: The Dish, Strictly Ballroom, and Danny Deckchair. When the titles rolled I said "That was nice. I feel good." Can't ask for much more than that when you trip over a movie you've never heard of.

BTW, the quote "If you were my husband I'd poison your soup" was actually spoken at a dinner party by Lady Astor to Winston Churchill, but his reply was "Madam, if I were your husband, I would gladly drink it."- from the National Lampoon's 1973 "Wit & Witticisms of Winston Churchill

"Mr. Reliable" is a must-see movie if you're into romance flicks. I was channel surfing and discovered this film on Sundance channel. It's very hard to condense the greatness of this movie in a couple of words but it's very excellent. I highly recommend this to everyone. Trust me.

MR. RELIABLE is a cool, relaxed and unusual mixture of comedy, crime and satire. It´s in the late sixties and Wally is a former prisoner who wants to settle down with his new girlfriend, but by a misunderstanding the couple and her little kid are trapped in a house on the Australian countryside, with the police thinking that Wally is holding the woman and the kid hostages. The film contains many charming and humoristic moments as the drama goes on, partly due to the crowd gathering outside the house. They have hippie parties and barbeques, some teenagers make love when a mother sees them, a journalist wants to interview Wally´s girlfriend about her underwear and so on. The filmmakers want to make a satire about media and people´s reactions to a tense situation, and I think they were inspired by Milos Forman´s HAIR and some "serious" hostage films. This is a cool film.

This movie is a hidden gem in Australian cinema. No car chases, no monsters, no real bad guys (besides the police), just a good piece of film. I'm not a fan of some of the shot choices, the sound had an echo and the directors style was quite bland, but there was some great lighting choices and costume designs. Fairly unpredictable which makes for a fun movie for the whole family.

This film failed terribly at the box office. It's a really funny film. Colin friel's appearance, should've brought people in. Jacqueline Mackenzie is wonderfully cast. Despite being made in 1996, it depicts an bygone era, of the '60's.