Search

The Hard Word

2002, Movie, R, 103 mins

The Hard Word: Review

HARD WORD, THE
starstarstarstar
A blackly comic, neo-noir heist picture, Australian screenwriter Scott Roberts's directing debut fairly oozes strenuous eccentricity. Robert's models seem to have been the pulp novels of Jim Thompson, Guy Ritchie's laddish LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (1998) and SNATCH (2000) by way of the Coen brothers' BLOOD SIMPLE (1984). But his film's hard-boiled excesses are more reminiscent of 1970s Italian crime pictures, which ratcheted up the violence and cynicism of their American models but invariably lost something in the translation. Imprisoned brothers Dale (Guy Pearce), Mal (Damien Richardson) and Shane Twentyman (Joel Edgerton) have always abided by a few simple rules, foremost that no one gets hurt during their robberies. Though markedly different — Dale's the lean and hungry brain, Mal is a pudgy, good-natured goofball and the muscle-bound Shane is a flat-out psycho with a deceptive sweet streak — the brothers always have each other's backs. When they want to talk privately in public, they use the colorful butcher's back-slang they picked up from their dad. Dale's crooked lawyer, Frank (Robert Taylor), has devised a novel way for them to set aside some cash while they're in jail and curry favor with the crooked warden as well. The warden periodically lets the brothers out on top-secret furloughs, during which they to pull off heists in and around nearby Sydney. The brothers have the perfect alibi — if they're in jail they could hardly be out committing robberies — and the carefully distributed cash keeps everyone quiet. But there's always a catch, in this case two. Dale is being eaten up by the conviction that his tarty wife, Carol (Rachel Griffiths), is two-timing him with Frank, and Frank gets greedy and arranges a daring race-track robbery in Melbourne without consulting his partners, very bad cops Kelly (Vince Colosimo) and O'Riordan (Paul Sonkkila). The heist goes spectacularly bad, setting in motion a bloody, escalating chain reaction of double- and triple-crosses. The plot is familiar and Roberts is trying too hard to be colorfully hard-edged, but the film's full-throttle performances — with the conspicuous exception of Taylor, who's so wooden he sounds dubbed — are entertaining. What Griffiths lacks in blowsy curves she makes up for with an extravagant vulgarity that reaches its apex when she dips her finger under her skirt and smears a happy face on the visiting-room partition that separates her from Dale. Even he's stunned. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
Advertisement

Shop

The Hard Word
Buy The Hard Word from Amazon.com
From Lions Gate (DVD)
Average Customer Review: nostarnostarnostarhalfstarstar
Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy New: $13.49 (as of 12/05/09 4:41 PM EST - more info)

more The Hard Word products

Advertisement

Related Websites

You might be also interested in the following websites:

Most Popular TV Shows

  1. NCIS
  2. Dancing with the Stars
  3. The Game
  4. Biggest Loser
  5. American Idol
more popular tv shows

Most Popular Celebrities

  1. Morgan Freeman
  2. Tiger Woods
  3. Drew Barrymore
  4. Jake Gyllenhaal
  5. Robert De Niro
more popular celebrities

Most Popular Movies

  1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon
  2. The Blind Side
  3. 2012
  4. Old Dogs
  5. A Christmas Carol
more popular movies

Top Videos

  1. Late Show with David Letterman
  2. The View
  3. Bones
  4. Dateline NBC
  5. The View
more top videos