Walk the Talk

Joe Grasso knows all the hype and nonsense of business, but is flogging the wrong product, a neverwas club singer with a lot of baggage. Sacha Horler as Bonita proves she is an ace actor. Some probs with the script however as Joe's verbosity needs to be contained. Perhaps this movie should be cut with compassion and intelligence. Ten minutes shorter could be good news. Still it's a good movie!

Time line of the film: * Laugh * Laugh * Laugh * Smirk * Smirk * Yawn * Look at watch * walk out * remember funny parts at the beginning * smirk

Unfortunately, this movie has a good concept that it grinds to the ground.

It's awful.

Pretty succinct review I know, but it has been a long time since a film has left me in such a bewildered state - wondering how the hell a film like that gets made.

The last time it happened was last years turkey 'Mission to Mars'.

Salvatore Coco is an ex-con - trying to better himself through self help videos, endless seminars and betterment courses. He lives by the catchphrases these courses expound.

He stumbles across a washed up nightclub singer, played by Nikki Bennett, and has an epiphany; his new career is going to be that of a talent agent - with the singer as his one and only client.

Financed by his gospel singing, paraplegic girlfriend, played by Sasha Horler - he sets up shop and tries to relaunch Nikki's career, with disastarous results.

'Walk the Talk' is the reason why Australians are so contemptuous of Australian cinema. It is poorly constructed, lame and way wayyy too long (111 minutes for a comedy that should barely have scraped the 80 minute mark).

Every scene is too long, and are very repetitive. The audience is not given a character to empathise with; a vital ingredient in a film like this supposedly about an 'underdog' giving it a go.

The downbeat and frankly poor ending comes at the end of 30 minutes of the most mind numbing dialogue and scenes that have you crying out for a power failure.

This film is a failure on all levels - made worse for Queensland audiences by its liberal and innacurate use of various Gold Coast/Palm Beach location; and its laughable use of Brisbane suburb names like Norman Park and Caboolture.

The protagonist in a movie as arrogant and selfish as this - among several other characteristics of a jerk to the core - is not a desirable, nor is it a common approach writers are keen to take. However like most quirky-like films, we are set up for something more. The suspicion of something significant happening is subtly fed throughout the film and bonus points are awarded for its not-so-typical protagonist, and when the storyline comes to a full circle. Although the fact that the movie finally ended could have been bonus points itself!

Unless it's for personal entertainment, would not recommend any writers approaching a story in film this way again though. We can only be irritated so much by a character that some people may be pushed to the brink of acting in the most insulting way possible: watching something else.

Shirley Barrett has a way of hooking into personality quirks and waving them about shamelessly on a silver screen to brilliant effect. Walk the talk is no exception. Consistently amusing and occasionally, absolutely hilarious. The "dinomyte, sorry, "dynamite" scene has to be one of the most beautifully setup, laugh out loud hilarious sequences I have seen in many years. Walk the talk is ultimately an insightful and oddly sensitive look at the ground dwellers of the entertainment industry, people desperate and aching for that big break but are doomed to mediocrity.

Maybe because Salvatore Coco's character, the affectionately annoying Joey Grasso was so strong and omnipresent throughout the story that it made the experience less rich than Shirley Barrett's first feature 'Love Serenade', but Walk the Talk is well worth seeing and has the director's signature plot diversions and observations that make it art.

And hey, for those of you that have seen it, Joey Grasso has not given up yet- www.nikkibennett.com :)

7 out of 10