Mr. Crocodile Dundee

This was a breakout hit for Australian TV star Paul Hogan and you can see why. He effortlessly oozes charm and witty one-liners and instantly gets you on his side.

The film is in two halves, the first half is spent in the outback of Australia where New York reporter Linda Kozlowski flies out to see the legendary crocodile hunter in person to report on his story. Not only is she charmed by small town Australia and the characters she meets but a possible romance starts to develop between the two after Mick Dundee saves her from a near death experience. She is so intrigued by him she brings him back to New York, and this is where the second half begins.

The juxtaposition of dusty outback to densely populated city is where much fun is to be had in the script as Hogan milks the fish out of water innocent abroad scenario for all it's worth but does it with subtlety, wit and charm. The memorable one-liner regarding the knife is a classic moment and helps define this breezy romantic comedy.

It's still as fresh and enjoyable as the day it hit an unsuspecting audience and thrust Hogan into international stardom almost overnight, although British audiences were already familiar with his dry Aussie wit from the popular Fosters lager commercials of the early 80's.

Everyone knows the story by now: a New York reporter travels to Australia to write a story about Mick "Crocodile" Dundee, a down under wild man who returns to New York with the reporter. Very 80s, but still very funny, even 15 years later (the armed kangaroo scene is hillarious no matter how many times I see it). Well paced and well done. 7 out of 10.

As well as being loaded with every satisfying cross-cultural gag you would hope for, Crocodile Dundee also contains many heartwarming messages about what's important in life.

Also, having lived in Australia for the last decade, I can confirm that Paul Hogan's character is more fact than fiction and that bushtucker grub does indeed taste like s**t.

Linda Kozlowski plays a reporter who goes to the Australian Outback to do a story on Mick "Crocodile" Dundee, Played by Paul Hogan. She gets a good taste of Dundee's simple Tarzan-like life in the wilderness and decides to invite him to New York City. Dundee is a fish-out-of-water in the big city, of course, but it doesn't take him long to adapt, and the New Yorkers love him. Linda and Dundee naturally start to fall in love despite the fact that she has an arrogant fiancé.

"Crocodile Dundee" was released in 1986 and spawned two sequels in 1988 and 2001. It successfully combines 3 genres or themes -- romantic comedy, adventure and fish-out-of-water.

What makes the film work so well is the simple charisma of Paul Hogan. You'll likely never experience a more likable protagonist. On top of this, Linda Kozlowski is both likable and lovely, possessing an attractive spirituality and intelligence.

Paul and Linda have great chemistry. The chemistry is real seeing as how they would marry four years later in 1990. This is funny in light of the fact that one of Roger Ebert's main criticisms of the film was their supposed lack of chemistry. I love Roger Ebert. He's a great writer and critic, but he obviously missed it big on this one!

"Crocodile Dundee" was the most successful Australian film ever. It only runs about 90 minutes before the credits start. This is great because romantic comedies like "Dundee" are light fare; there's simply no reason to go much longer than an hour and a half. In other words, "Dundee" doesn't overstay its welcome.

GRADE: A-

The Australian film industry first began to come to international notice in the seventies and early eighties with films like Peter Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and "Gallipoli", Fred Schepisi's "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith" and Bruce Beresford's "Breaker Morant". Most of these were films with a serious theme and, often, a historical setting. "Crocodile Dundee" was different. Not only did it have a contemporary setting, it was also perhaps the first great Australian comedy- certainly the first Australian comedy to achieve international success.

The protagonists are Mick Dundee, a bushman from northern Australia, and Sue Charleton, an attractive young female journalist from New York. Sue is on assignment in Australia, and hears stories about a legendary crocodile hunter from the small outback village of Walkabout Creek. (The name may be homage to Nicolas Roeg's film "Walkabout", one of the earliest manifestations of the Australian New Wave. One of the stars of that film, David Gumpilil, has a part in Crocodile Dundee). Sue meets Mick to interview him and travels with him into the bush to see the scene of his famed encounter with a crocodile that nearly cost him his leg. She then arranges for him to travel back to New York with her- the first time he has been outside Australia or visited a city.

The film is essentially a romantic comedy. Romantic comedies generally deal with a couple in love and the way in which they overcome obstacles to their love. A common type of obstacle is a discrepancy in their social backgrounds, and this is the type we have here. Sue and Mick seem to be polar opposites. She is a typical product of the American East Coast elite- urban, wealthy, professional, politically committed to liberal causes. He is from a working-class background, rural, apolitical with no fixed employment. As another reviewer has pointed out, he is as much a fish out of water in the city as she is in the outback. To make things worse, he is considerably older than her, and she already has a boyfriend, her editor Richard. There is, however, a saying that polar opposites attract, and this is as true of characters in romantic comedies as it is of magnets. The marvellous ending on the crowded subway station is one of the most memorable finales to any romantic comedy, rivalling that of "The Graduate".

Some romantic comedies concentrate on romance at the expense of comedy, but Crocodile Dundee is not one of them. The film is brilliantly funny, especially in the second half when the action moves to New York. The main source of the humour is Paul Hogan's title character. Mick is a rough diamond, but decent, kindly and good-hearted. Most of the laughs arise from his innocent misunderstanding of the seedier aspects of life in the big city- there are jokes at the expense of prostitutes, criminals like the muggers who flee when they see Mick has a bigger knife than they have ("That's not a knife. THAT'S a knife!"), transvestites (one of whom Mick mistakenly tries to chat up), drug takers (Mick thinks cocaine is a cure for blocked sinuses) and psychiatrists ("Haven't you got any mates to talk to?") This last sentiment touched a chord in Britain, ever suspicious of the American obsession with psycho-analysis. Mick may be apolitical, but he is also politically incorrect- much of the humour is aimed at the culture of political correctness, just starting to burgeon in the mid-eighties. There are jokes about race and gender, and Dundee is not only a drinker but also a heavy smoker. (And this during a decade when smoking was almost banished from the screen).

Some of the humour is perhaps a bit exaggerated- it is, for example, difficult to believe that Mick does not recognise the prostitutes for what they are, as he is no sexual innocent but a red-blooded ladies' man with an eye for the Sheilas- but this is deliberate exaggeration for satirical effect. The film both satirises and celebrates Australia's self-image as a land of self-reliant pioneers from the outback- most modern Australians, in fact, live in the suburbs of a few large cities- by contrasting idealised rural Australian values with the supposed vices of urban America.

Despite the great success of this film, the sequel was less successful and Paul Hogan and his lovely co-star Linda Kozlowski (who later became his wife) did not perhaps go on to the glittering careers that some had predicted for them. Nevertheless, Mick Dundee will live on as one of the great comic characters of all time, and the film itself as one of the best comedies of the eighties and possibly the best Australian comedy ever. 9/10