Rebel

Is Hell a real place? I don't know but if it's anything like sitting and watching this movie I know I don't want to go there. I experienced just that in a theatre in San Diego with this picture. This film is just plain BAD!!!

Matt Dillon, imported almost directly from The Outsiders (and later Something About Mary) with Australia's one time Pop Queen Debbie Byrne made a rather awkward couple in this 1985 Cabaret musical set in World War 2 Sydney. Produced by local entrepreneur Phillip Emmanuel and taking full advantage of the tax concessions of the time (the infamous 10BA, much rorted here in Oz by unscrupulous 'film makers') REBEL tries very hard to en-ter-tain you whilst clobbering you with 80s kitch 40s style. Most everything in the film is a garish pink or red, with tin icon decor of Sydney and local actors yelling their lines at each other through very broad slang. Matt Dillon plays a soldier AWOL who hides out in Debbie's apartment and apparently falls in love with her. It is all sort of all right. In 1982 a better musical was produced here called STAR STRUCK and REBEL supplants all the OZ kitchery into a 1943 period harborside wharehouse nightclub and adds raucous musical numbers. Only one is really good; most are not. Today it is a curiosity of an attempt at having US stars in Oz pix for overseas sales possibilities. Many films were cast like this like THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER with - believe it or not - Kirk Douglas (!!!!) and Rebel is in this mould. Maybe that should be mold. Dillan looks good, pouts, kisses Debbie and ultimately goes home. It was a reasonable success in its day...but now...all a bit squirm inducing. It would be interesting to see if it is still on Dillon's resume. I think at the time he might have had more fun in real local nightclubs than on the set of REBEL.

Before the films from down under became such a delicacy (Strictly Balroom etc) this movie tries its best and, even though it doesn't accomplish much, still makes an impression that separates it from many other similar with it.

A very very young Matt Dillon and then Pop diva make a bit awkward couple, but Debra Byrnes manages to earn some sympathy from the audience (and an AFI nomination for Best Actress). The story is a bit too much melodramatized and the last scene is a bit too extravagant, given the fact it takes place in a club and not an opera house.

However, the song that Byrnes performs ("Heroes") made quite an impression to me and I still remember its lyrics even after 20 years or so that I have seen it.