The Craic

The Craic is nearly as good as 'Welcome to Whoop Whoop'.There are about two laughs in the whole movie.Why did they bother.Doesn't anyone read the scripts before they make these movies.

Jimeoin is a strange comedian indeed. He seems to be better placed on the the stage telling jokes than in a situational comedy, and he looks extremely awkward in this movie, and tries to ring a joke out of everything, even some situations that are woefully unfunny. I have a feeling that the distributors thought that Jimeoin's name would sell this product alone, as the script is very poor. It appears to be about immigration out to get these two guys but at times it plods so dreadfully and is so incoherent that it is impossible to actually make heads or tails out of the dreadfully incoherent script. Jimeoin certainly gets points for trying, but maybe if he actually tried a little harder this film would have been much better!

Jimeoin writes and stars in this cheerful little "fish-out-of-water" flick about two Irish guys in Australia on the run from Immigration and

a head-case IRA man.

Some of the scenarios are clearly developments of Jimeoin's stand-up comedy routines. Australian audiences will be best placed to pick the gleeful reworkings of Aussie "culture". The dating game spoof in particular is a hoot.

Good use of outback locations, but that's a bit redundant. Have you ever read a comment "there was lousy use of Australian outback locations - it didn't look good at all."? Point a camera pretty much anywhere in outback Australia and you'll get decent footage simply because of the light, colour and space.

Another highlight - Perennial character actor "Bud" Tingwell as a mad melon farmer.

Drawbacks - the Irish characters need subtitles at times due to their impenetrable accents. Too many set-pieces linked by a threadbare plot. But for all that, acceptable light entertainment.

This first major screen effort for Irish comedian Jimeoin has a few genuine belly laughs, but it's generally like the man's stand-up act: lots of smirks, smiles and the odd giggle with quite a few slow patches in the middle. It has an almost 'Crocodile Dundee' feel to it, ie. using plot devices to show off the wild Australian outback to a (hopefully) overseas audience. Not a totally disagreeable way to spend an hour and a half, but it's no comedic classic.

I'm a big fan of Jimeoin's work, but this film is really nothing special.

The plot is pretty weak, and at the movie's end, you may feel that there was something missing in it.

That said, the acting is pretty good, but comes across as being incomplete.

Good time filler, but don't expect anything special. Hire The Castle instead.

Rating: C