Mullet

In my family people who don't face up to their responsibilities, who leave suddenly when confronted, are known as bolters.

My Aunt Mary, an extreme eccentric, was a bolter. A heart breaker and also a sudden breaker of leases, she'd turn up 500 miles away in another job if some man was getting too keen. She developed doin' the bolt into an art form. She managed that for 70 years!

Eddie (Ben Mendelsohn) in Mullet is a bolter. He's about thirty and has unexpectedly turned up in his small town. We find that he'd broken at least two hearts by leaving three years before and it seems that he's not too interested in changing his ways.

Eddie, known as Mullet, is selfish and spoilt but sufficiently self reliant to eak a living catching mullet in the local creeks while living alone in a clapped out caravan. He used to be a local rugby league star, destined for the big time in Sydney. But again he bolted.

Mullet is set in a small coastal town south of Sydney. The locals aren't particularly happy even if the town looks very pretty. Mullet is scenic.

His parents (Kris McQuade and Tony Barry) are malcontents who have formed an alliance based on not talking directly to each other. His brother (Andrew S. Gilbert) is a local cop and other friends include Tully (Suzie Porter) and Kay (Belinda McClory). Mullet's sister is played very nicely by Peta Brady.

In fact all of the performances are very good, its just a shame that they weren't able to grace a more worthy script.

Mullet is the third film from director David Caesar after Greenkeeping and Idiot Box. It's only about 90 minutes long but still seems to be padded by a profusion of meaningless set up shots that lead nowhere and a plot with far too little happening.

It's all well and good to establish a scene or a mood with panning shots but lit buildings and front yards only retain a limited appeal. Mullet does have a terrifically moody sound track from Paul Healy.

But it's as if the scriptwriter for Mullet had done the bolt, which is a little strange because David Caesar also wrote this muddy little piece.

3 Underwritten Flys out of 5.

. I did my best to like this film, and it has many good things. A reasonably tight script, a good smoldering performance from Ben Mendelssohn in the lead, fine supporting performances from Andrew Gilbert, Susie Porter, Tony Barry, Kris McQuaide and Belinda McClory, rugby league, nice countryside, stark, open, beautiful cinematography, and even a decent theme; what is there at the heart of the Aussie soul?

Well, mullet is a pretty dull fish, and this celebration of it, if that's the right word, just wasn't entertaining. The film even at 90 minutes dragged. Some contrived drama at the end came to nothing. The characters were understandable, if not likeable, but it really just amounted to pointing the camera at a group of country people and saying `tell us about the hollowness of your lives.' It is partly redeemed by a reasonably upbeat ending. It was like a film school piece made by someone with 10 years experience in the industry. It may have some resonance with Australians who have good attention spans (especially residents of Kiama), and is pretty to watch, but mullet like to swim in shallow waters, which this film never leaves.

Cor, wot a crap film! Like many others, no doubt, I went to "Mullet" expecting to see a rather humorous film. What I actually DID see was some mundane piece of rubbish that went nowhere and had me leaving the cinema scratching my head and thinking (in the words of the immortal D-Gen "Late Show" song), "What was that all about?" Basically, this movie revolves around some guy who goes back to the country town where he used to live after being away from the place for about three years. Once he gets there, what happens? Well not a lot really. He just goes around pi**ing everyone off (something that he apparently has quite a talent for), and catching mullet from one of the local rivers (an activity that proves the source of his nickname, incidentally; to my surprise, this movie had nothing whatsoever to do with mullet haircuts). Oh, and he also discovers that his old girlfriend has married his brother. Annoyingly, when he runs into this woman, the first thing she does is punch him: just another annoying example of the double standard which decrees that, when a guy so much as slaps a woman in a movie (even if she's behaving in a truly obnoxious fashion), he is evil incarnate, yet when a woman punches out a guy (usually for no other reason than because she's throwing a big childish temper tantrum), we're supposed to applaud her actions or worse, find them funny.

Anyway, without wanting to waste too much more time commenting on this film (cos it really doesn't warrant the effort; I'm only doing this because I'm bored), I'd just like to say that, while the main character is vaguely amusing at times (and has a few funny lines), this movie really isn't worth the effort. To paraphrase a quote I found scribbled on a desk in a lecture theatre back in my university days: "Mullet is about as interesting as the time Mr Boringworth won the World Water Drinking Championship in the City of Drying Paint." Go watch some long-lived radioisotopes decay instead.

I really love the fact that Australians really don't mind having a honest look at themselves.What I especially liked was how accurate these characters were portrayed, these people are real! Granted the movie was a little slow in places, but this is set in a small town so the pacing really puts the viewer inside the minds and hearts of the people and the general atmosphere of the township. Simple story telling at its best, well portrayed by an excellent cast, I think we have all met a "mullet" or Peter and of course their fabulous parents at sometime in our lives. This film was gritty, emotional, and always searching and trying to make sense from a personal perspective, especially from a family perspective. The questions this film asks, are how does this town work? where do I (mullet) fit in? do I fit in? why did I come back? and the search always made difficult with so much communication breakdown and self denial, ultimately people are pushed into corners where eventually you have to "stand back up when you have been knocked down". The story is about Eddie "mullet" coming home after 3yrs absence and completely upsetting this little community, which is tight knit, simple yet complicated. The girlfriend he left behind has married another, so mullet wants answers! leaving the girlfriend torn between her past and her present lovers. No pretense. No gloss, just honesty and simplicity. So I f you want to kick back, smile, empathise and enjoy some light drama (just to escape hollywood cliches, and not be bombarded by explosions/gunfire and cgi effects!) then this movie is just the ticket........well done 7/10

this movie was so terribly bad that just as my girlfriend and i were getting up to leave in total disgust... it ended. a thin plot, bad acting, lifeless characters, no action or startling developments, it was by far the worst movie i've seen in a long time.

i am familiar with the area that it was filmed in, and can't say that the characters portrayed are indicative of the locals... the locals are smarter, funnier, and far better company (and i dont live around there).

well may they say god save the queen, for nothing can save the australian film industry... if they keep turning out "quality" like this.