Cedar Boys

Don't you just love it when you're searching for some escapism and you accidentally come across a movie that you've never heard of and are impressed by it from start to finish. This movie is classy because it takes an old, predictable story line but makes you want to keep watching simply because of the quality of the film making. The acting is fantastic. The entire cast are totally believable (where are all these brilliant Aussie actors hiding?)The tension and suspense in the direction is enthralling. The dialogue is underplayed and the ominous cool of modern urban multiculturalism is portrayed with artistry. Great cast, script and especially insightful direction. Loved it!

I am an Australian and in our country, we are pretty suspicious of our own crime and genre films. There is always something not quite right. they either imitate American cinema, have our local dialogue painfully wrong or just get details totally off the mark. they can also have mediocre production values or poor style and direction. Chopper is perhaps the best Australian film of the Genre. It got the detail right and could be taken seriously. Lately, our TV has been dominated with Australian "true crime" stories such as the Underbelly series. people love the salacious content and real life figures (often dead in real-life from gang-land murders) being depicted on screen. Unfortunately Its pretty crap made for TV entertainment.

The Cedar Boys is a low budget film entry into the genre. I was skeptical going in but its honestly quite a nice little gem.

The film revolves around a few guys in the Lebanese community who deal drugs. One naive guy in the group, motivated by impressing a girl with cocaine and raising cash for his Brothers court appeal, finds a way of getting a cheap stash of drugs. This requires stealing them from another dealer, who isn't home and that is pretty much the set up.

What I liked about the film was it kept things pretty low-key. it didn't go over the top with stereotypes, ramp up any unnecessary drama or action. Its an efficient and mostly tight genre piece that becomes more satisfying and engrossing as it goes along. The protagonist is perfectly alright in the role of the mostly good natured guy going bad but his two collaborators (one cocky the other understated) are really excellent. There are bits and pieces that don't work, shots that are not perfect but the shooting schedule was 26 days and that is a record for an Australian feature film. I think the briskness of the shoot mostly worked in its favor, giving a pretty fresh and organic feel.

What works is the low-budget. The locations are real and the shooting is mostly an effective doco style approach. I didn't like the constant green tones in the colour scheme though. it is a look used in too many films.

As I said the story unfolds and becomes more interesting as things sharpen up to a totally satisfying climax. I enjoyed this film because of being surprised at how well made it was. reading the synopsis, I was expecting a cringe-fest and wasn't going to check it out at all. I switched over to the station it was playing on and it ended up being a worthy experience.

Us Australians love to get the knives out, tearing apart Aussie films and often for good reason but I can honestly say this is worth watching. The secret to these films being successful is often a low budget and being forced to do most of it for real, avoiding clichés and often getting inexperienced actors that already inhabit a look and feel you want. It can bring authenticity which the genre otherwise lacks.

This film was really big surprise for me since I've never heard about it and no one seems to have seen it.

This dark, realistic, gritty, crime drama takes no prisoners, offers no easy explanations and also gives the viewer something to think about. The film circles around three friends with lebanese heritage who all dreams of succeeding and becoming financially independent.

The life of crime is the easy way out when everything else seems to fail and thus these three friends embark on a road that can only lead to more problems.

Director Serhat Caradee has gotten a very talented group actors like, Les Chantery, Bren Foster, Waddah Sari, Rachael Taylor etc. Everyone plays their characters with a lot realism, honesty and also leaves the viewer with an emotional impact that rarely seen in crime films nowadays.

Usually crime drama fall short on realism, they become too glossy or starts glorifying the main characters, or makes unrealistic plot turns but not so here.

The socialrealism is everywhere in this film, it has a lowkey tone/style to it that reminds you of old classics like The Panic in Needle Park (1971, Mean Streets (1973) etc.

Some of the characters feels so real you could sworn you met these on a Friday night at some clubs, bars, discos.

See this film, it will be worth it, providing that you like films like Gomorra (2008, Little Odessa (1994) or documentaries like Cocaine Cowboys (2006.

Yet another one of those things where if it doesn't exist on the internet, it doesn't exist. This movie was groundbreaking, one of the first to give a glimpse into the lebanese underworld of Sydney, more than a decade before Last King of the Cross. I really liked this film. But, unfortunately, it might as well never been made. You cannot view it anywhere on the internet, not youtube, or any of the torrent or streaming sites. Great but doesn't exist is the same as just doesn't exist. Such a shame, as all it would take is a few people to get together and be dedicated streamers on P2P sites, and it would spread.