The Honourable Wally Norman

A film that sets out to make fun of the politicians should be number one at the Australian box office but this really fails- it just isn't funny. The problem lies with the huge number of main characters. It has absolutely no focus and fails to generate the laughs.

The promotional trailer had been promising, but unfortunately all of the amusing bits of the film were in that trailer.

Consequently all I got out of the rest of Wally Norman was one snicker and a smirk (and I had to wait 30 minutes for the snicker).

The film is incredibly bland, and for a comedy that's pretty disastrous. There was a good sized crowd in our session, but very little real laughter - and several people, like myself, were clearly unimpressed.

It's got a fairly crappy script, old jokes, nothing more than predictability in its plot and some pretty shabby editing.

I would have walked out after 30 minutes, but there was a slight suggestion that Wally Norman's son might be gay, so I stayed on to see where they went with that. The son smiles whimsically on two occasions when he's looking at another young male character. The smile was obviously taken by some of the audience (who guffawed briefly) as meaning that Wally's son had as much interest in this man as did his daughter. However the son's sexuality is never even alluded to in the rest of the film, and the son doesn't look sideways at the other character again - proving that this was merely a directorial blunder.

It'll be interesting to see what the "Kath & Kim" devotees make of it (that's a popular current Australian TV series by the same director) - perhaps you require a special bent to see this film as being truly funny, rather than merely pleasant.

This is a highly enjoyable funny film. The mix-ups and the sight gags and the jokes that just keep on rolling. Right from the beginning there were hints that something was going to happen but they kept you right in there. You wanted to cheer and root for Wally Norman as he was manipulated and taken advantage of and it supported all your beliefs about crooked politicians and their backdoor dealings. A kind of Mr Smith goes to Washington or Full Monty, small people taking on the system and working it to their advantage after many stumbling blocks.

I've seen some less than flattering reviews of this film. I have to say that anyone with an understanding and/or experience of politics in Australia will appreciate the intelligent humour and satire. I've also seen other comments that say there is nothing funny about this film. That's complete garbage. The Ken Oats political advertisement is the wittiest and sharpest piece of satire that has appeared in an Australian film in a long time. I give this five out of five.

Glad to see this very witty political satire finally beginning to improve its scores on this site. It's overall shape is definitely familiar, but to see it as just another 'Castle' knockoff totally underestimates it. It's by far the cleverest of all the recent 'Aussie battler' comedies, as a few critics pointed out, and it's by far the best performed, with a great appearance by Kevin Harrington (who I see scored an AFI nomination for Best Actor for this, which is pretty unusual for an Aussie comedy), and Shaun Micallef (who should have won an AFI for his performance). 'The Castle' is funnier overall, but the Micallef political ad is by far the funniest thing in any Australian comedy I can think of. Also, this is the most honestly touching of any Australian comedy I can think of, except perhaps 'The Big Steal' or 'Malcolm', and the scenes between Harrington and his wife, played by Ros Hammond, are lovely. In time, this will be regarded as an Australian classic. It's a bit slow moving in parts, and it could have been funnier, but corrupt Aussie politics has never been taken apart better by an Australian movie, and this is a movie I can watch again and again, just for the great one liners and moments.