BOOTLEG

Australia, 1985, 105 minutes, Colour.
John Flaus, Ray Meagher, Carmen Duncan, John Gregg.
Directed by John Prescott.

Bootleg is a small-budget ambitious feature which did not win an audience.

The film was written and directed by John Prescott, who made an excellent film debut with his AFI Award-winning short fiction film A Town Like This (a variation of the Wake In Fright theme). Here his story is much more extended - but not well-written (often over-written), complex with too many strands of little dramatic moment.

The film traces the adventures of a Sydney private-eye, Joe Hart. He is presented as a middle-aged, isolated namby-pamby man with a possessive mother whom he puts in a home while he is away on business. There is some satire here - with the ending in a Catholic church with mother and son singing the Chariots of Fire - Jerusalem hymn (not quite appropriately).

In the meantime, he goes to Brisbane, plays the saxophone and is mistaken for a hit-man by the Queensland police and as a talented musician who is helping people in the bootleg record industry. He does some detecting along the way, restores a lost daughter to her father and has an affair with an ageing call-girl who is bashed because of her connection with him. Along the way he sees some of the seedier aspects of Brisbane - including a long tunnel peopled with homosexual prostitutes.

This indicates the tone of the film's view of Queensland and its satiric criticism of it. It uses caption devices and ironic exaggeration of the, way that southern states see the Queenslanders. This is especially evident with the portrayal of the police, especially Ray Meagher as a cocky hatted tough Right-Wing? style Head of Police with his eager young secretary and eager young police ready to shoot or bash anyone. They are mistaken in their pursuit of Hart. The film also has much reference to orders coming from the top.

There is also a focus on the anti-nuclear protest - some protest sequences which then become lost as the film focuses on one of their leaders, T.C. Brown (played by John Gregg) who is obsessed about the coming destruction and wants to build a shelter in the north. fie is also in search of his pregnant daughter Netha (Shelley Friend, who has some of the worst dialogue along with Ian Nimmo as Lucan, her boyfriend). Lucan is involved in the bootleg record industry. There are also record industry thugs (an idiotic man and two idiotic women) stalking Hart.

There is also an alcoholic veteran news reporter who has long speeches explaining the political situation in Queensland and who gives information for Hart to highlight the government's involvement in some terrorist bomb explosions.

Most of this material is interwoven but not particularly skilfully. Characters move out of the film for long stretches.

The film is not well-written in its dialogue - although John Flaus as Joe Hart gives his best and tries to make a character. Carmen Duncan does her best with the call-girl role and Ray Meagher and John Gregg exaggerate with some sinister tone in their roles. Max Meldrum is effective in his performance as the reporter.

What might have been an entertaining private-eye with political overtones turns out to be a film that does not entice an audience to interest in or sympathy with the characters.