Roll

It is enjoyable and fast-paced.

There is no way on Earth that the actor playing Mat could be eighteen. However, the main thing is that he does act eighteen very convincingly. It must be a credit to his audition that he convinced them to cast him. I quite soon accepted him as being a naive young country boy.

While his was the best performance, most of the others were also very engaging. In particular, the interplay between the policemen was natural and well-balanced, and worked very well.

It is only about 45 minutes long, so the plot is not complex. More key is the style of the whole thing. It is very slick and vibrant, and the backdrops are atmospheric, especially from the fact that all the colours are extremely rich. The gangland is identifiable to foreign audiences, but still manages to be distinctly Australian.

This ghastly Western Australian short film does nothing to dispel the opinion that Aussie film industry has never been in worse shape. Badly written, garishly shot and miscast to the max it's truly awful.

Ex WA actor Marcus Graham is badly out of sorts as a cop. He was so much better in the TV show 'Good guys Bad Guys'.

Plenty of resources were obviously poured into this effort, but with the script so bad and the visual style so off putting this film has little to recommend it.

Unfortunately the only good thing that can be said is the fact the producers managed to get this project off the ground. Oh and it has a nice credit sequence. On all other accounts it's a bit of an embarrassment for all concerned.

Mat Spirogolou's (Toby Malone) family know he is a talented footballer, and are pleased when he secures an audition to join a big club. They hope that when he arrives in the city his cousin will look after him.

But the cousins are like chalk and cheese: one a naive farm boy, the other a streetwise spendthrift who has managed to get mixed up with drug dealers and gangsters. Mat is unlikely to have a quiet evening in before his big day.

Having missed his cousin George (Damien Robertson) on arrival in the city, Mat encounters further trouble when a young biker takes him for a ride in more ways than one.

Toby Malone, probably better known for his work in theatre, puts in a commendable performance as the bucolic teenager. There are telltale signs of a low budget, but as with so many other low-budget movies there's more fun, seemingly more spontaneity, and more charm, than there is to be seen in the average Hollywood blockbuster.

A country-boy Aussie-Rules player (Mat) goes to the city the night before an all-important AFL trial match, where he is to be picked up by his cousin. And then things go wrong.

His no-hoper cousin has become mixed up in a drug deal involving local loan-shark / drug-dealer Tiny (who looks like any gangster anywhere but is definitively Australian). Needless to say, Mat becomes enmeshed in the chaos, and it isn't long before thoughts of tomorrow's match are shunted to the back of his mind as the night's frantic events unravel.

Accomplished Western Australian professional Shakespearean actor Toby Malone puts in a sterling performance as young naive country-boy Mat, and successfully plays a part well below his age. Best support comes from John Batchelor as Tiny, and an entertaining role by David Ngoombujarra as one of the cops following the events. Roll is fast-paced, often funny, and a very worthwhile use of an hour.

ROLL is a wonderful little film. Toby Malone plays an 18 year old kid (very well acted, by the way) who is into soccer. Malone's cousin takes him out the night before his big game on an adventure with many twists and turns involving two gym bags, a drug lord, some tough bikers, some cops, and some prostitutes ... and the movie keeps us guessing as to which characters are on which side of the law, what the contents of either gym bag is, and even what gender a key biker is. Parts of it reminded me of LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING Barrels.

For me, ROLL reinforced three opinions that I already held before seeing ROLL. Those opinions are: 1. I really want to visit Australia one day. The country and cities are beautiful and it looks like such a cool place for a vacation.

2. Some of the best filmmakers in the are Australian. The cinematography in ROLL was especially impressive. I loved the stylized colors and lighting in many of the scenes.

3. Australian women are HOT!