The Tender Hook

I was swept away with the look and feel of this film. It reminds me of those glam film noir films - a mix of romance and violence. Rose Byrne is so gorgeous. The beautiful 20s costumes and look really suit her. Whoever did the costumes should be congratulated. Her scenes with that young Aussie guy are HOT. Hugo Weaving is great as always - his controlled violence is scary. Like good film noir you have to pay attention to the plot, but I didn't have a problem. And I really liked the music -a mix of jazzy numbers by Chris Abrahams and some modern songs. I hope they put out a soundtrack. The whole film was an interesting mix of period film with some modern touches - like the music.

My friends and I have just finished seeing a preview of this new Australian film. Everyone who was in the cinema agreed, what was the point of this film? There was no good story to follow, the characters were undeveloped, and the plot seemed unmotivated. I find it bizarre that this film, that probably cost in the high millions, got funded and made. It serves no purpose to the drama community, its adds nothing to the palette of Australian cinema. It really was a waste of time creating this droll unemotional piece of work and more time really should be spent work-shopping scripts and creating good stories, not creating a mess like this. Hugo Weaving and Rose Byrne were OK but severely hampered by a bad script. Pia Miranda's character was unnecessary and abstract from the plot, and her lines were average at best. A true waste of talent. The saving grace was Geoffrey Simpson ACS' cinematography, which like most Aussie films, was superb.

Come on guys, think about it next time please.

4/10

This 1920s gangster thriller (admittedly a rare beast in Oz film) has a great cast, good production values, but a poor script.

Gang boss Hugo Weaving is over-nasty as pathological mob boss and Rose Byrne is attractive as his seductive but confused moll, but her character is also under-developed. The story revolves around aspiring boxer Matt Le Nevez whom Weaving manipulates for his own profit.

The film is melodramatic, as Weaving overdoes the nastiness, and violence, but the ending redeems the film somewhat. The production looks good, with nice period sets and costuming, and the film has a good noir-ish look.

The film contains some amusing 20s jazz crooner version of Cohen and Dylan songs.

Ogilvie's big movie shows his exceptional craft in film making. The visuals alone are stunning, combined with top end editing, sets, and sound. The support players were almost better than the stars. the movie is flawed in other areas, a couple of slightly off performances noticeably from Hugo Weaving (what accent was he going for?) and Nevez (unconvinced of why we should care about him), and the story was so low key "small time crooks" that maybe the production values were just too good for it. Weaving was a little unconvincing as a tough guy although he could easily pull off scary. The violent scenes conflicted with him being a reasonably nice guy to his gf and taking sh!t from his underlings.

It's hard to know exactly why it didn't blow minds, but it certainly didn't blow. Some great lines and ideas going down in the script. Ogilvie shows class and control, craft and art, and I'd like to see where he goes next. Most definitely an art film rather than a big budget affair but with the look and feel it alludes to much more.

THE BOXER AND THE BOMBSHELL (AKA TENDER HOOK) is a strange little film from Australia by writer/director Jonathan Ogilvie. Strange, because it has so many fine attributes - cinematography, use of enhancing black and white period film into semi-colored film to bridge the gap between centuries, some very fine imagery, and a cast of strong actors. Everything seems to be in place for this film, including the manner in which the film begins - giving the audience an insight as to where the coming story will take us - except that Ogilvie fails to create memorable characters about whom we care. In many ways this is like a vaudeville show with many disconnected acts that move past our eyes so quickly that each is easily forgotten. The movie tries very hard to be unique, but it only succeeds in being a transiently memorable recreation of Australia in the mob controlled 1920s.

Following WW I and in the wake of the tragedies suffered, a gang headed by boss McHeath (Hugo Weaving) is in the boxing scam, horse race fixing, and the drug and booze market. A Japanese beer maker Hackett (Kuni Hashimoto) imports beer for the black market and falls out of favor with McHeath. McHeath's two main men - Donnie (Tyler Coppin) and Ronnie (John Batchelor) obey McHeath's orders but have their own agendas. McHeath keeps a moll named Iris (Rose Byrne) who cheers McHeath on while snorting cocaine. This little uninteresting way of life finally comes alive with the entry of young promising boxer Art Walker (Matthew Le Nevez - an interesting and talented new face) who cares for his older brother who suffers form the stress of having served in the Great War. McHeath has a boxer he is training to fix matches, Alby (Luke Carroll), and McHeath brings on Art to be his sparing partner. At the first fight the public deride Alby because of his race and Alby is dismissed leaving Art to take focus. Iris is attracted to Art but also feels tied to McHeath: to get Art out of the picture Iris slips cocaine into Art's lemonade before a fight and Art of course loses the important fight. From there it is a competition among all the cast - McHeath wants control and attention (he sings songs in the ring before the fights! and controls the people around him by terror and murder. How Art manages to cope with being a fight fixer versus keeping with his principles of being a good boxer and how the gang deals with that forms the ending of the film - surprises from the initial footage that opened the film.

Hugo Weaving impresses more with his singing than with creating a villain, Rose Byrne is simply beautiful in her ill-defined role, and Matthew Le Nevez, though forced to struggle through a weak script, makes an impressive screen presence. What is lacking from this visually stunning film is a sensible and credible story. The parts are much greater than the whole.

Grady Harp