SPIT

Australia, 2025, 102 minutes, Colour.

David Wenham, Arlo Green, David Field, Gary Sweet, Lewis Fitz-gerald, Maude Davey, David Roberts, Helen Thomson, Andrea Moore, Pallavi Sharda.

Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky.

In 2002, there was an award-winning comedy-drama, Getting’ Square, set on the Gold Coast, the story of drugs, corrupt police, investigations – and the roguish character, John Francis Spitieri, whom everybody called Spit, an addict but reforming, thongs, old crumpled clothes, providing a great deal of comedy along the way.

It is not necessary for audiences to have seen Getting’ Square to enjoy this follow-up, focusing on Spit. In fact, the film has a lot of things going for it, indeed more than a lot of things. Writer, Chris Nyst, is a criminal lawyer and knows the characters that he has created for the original and for Spit. David Wenham has noted that he is an ambassador for Kings Cross’s Wayside Chapel and is very much aware of many variations on Spit. Both Nyst and Wenham won AFI awards back then and are candidates for 2025, an even better script, and Wenham having lived with this character over a long time.

The screenplay is alive, vivid life through the characters. We laugh out loud then, only minutes later, some moments of deep humane pathos on serious themes, then laughs again and throughout some serious and violent sequences connected with the thugs and the law. As mentioned, these characters were in the original and there are some references back, some clips from the original – and, with such admiration for the court scene in the original, another court scene which is as good.

But, this time, Spit returning to Queensland on a fake passport and detained by the authorities, is more of a larrikin, an Aussie larrikin rather than a rogue. His face is now weatherbeaten. And he has his ambling gate, the thongs, the jeans, weary on the surface but pretty shrewd when he wants to be – and this is especially the case in the inner unexpected solution to his problems.

He is still pursued by the drug chief and the corrupt police (snarling Gary Sweet and David Field). But, on landing he is sent to a detention centre, encountering the refugees, listening to their stories. His dealing with them, teaching English, is very enjoyable Australian comedy, especially in dealing with Australia’s and the world’s hyper- abundant F-word. Spit sees it not as an swear word but as an emphasiser (though he cannot quite pronounce that correctly). His class illustrating its variety of emphases is quite hilarious (even for those who do not yet use it) and is followed up with many variations on it throughout the film.

But, for pathos there is the story of Spit’s sister and their separation, foster homes, reunited, her son, her illness and the demands on Spit’s affection.

One of the clever aspects of the screenplay is the frequency of quips, word misunderstandings that provide a lot of wit. And there is the courtroom, David Roberts providing a prosecutor straight man to Spit’s mischievousness, and all about reading glasses. David Wenham shows how adept he is. We know he does serious well, but he really embodies the comic Spit.

And he plays alongside a number of Australian character actors, especially with New Zealander, Arlo Green, as a sympathetic Syrian refugee.

Jonathan Teplitzky directed Getting’ Square (and also directed Wenham in Better than Sex) and the excellent, The Railway Man.

This reviewer would enjoy watching it again and certainly laughing with it.

1. The popularity of get in Square? A criminal world in Queensland? The quality of the screenplay and awards, David Wenham as spit and his awards? Welcoming him back with his own film?
2. The Queensland settings, airports, detention centres, restaurants, funeral parlours, police precincts, the courts, gardens, the beach and the sea, hospitals? Atmosphere? The musical score?
3. David Wenham’s portrait of Spit? His appearance, clothes, thongs, swagger? His vocabulary? The Australian larrikin, drugs in the past, criminal connections, reform, time in the UK, the Falls passport, arrival, behaviour at the airport, in the detention centre? Criminals discovering his being alive? The law and courts discovering that he was alive?
4. His background, story of his childhood, parents, his sister, the fire, foster care? The reuniting, his sister, death, her son, the bonding with Spit, her illness, death? His responsibility for the boy? Talking to the authorities, the future for him and the boy?
5. In the detention centre, Spit at something of a conman, taking the classes, listening to the stories of the refugees, giving them Australian names, vocabulary, the class on the use of the F word? Meeting with Jihad and his Syrian background story? Friendship?
6. Chika, His role in the past, drugs, the violence, his thugs, connections? Wanting to get Spit, sending the thugs, Spit in the confrontations, escaping? De Viers, police, corruption, his assistant, manipulation, contact with Chika? Plots, arrests, abducting Spit, holding out the window, and that you are later revelation for the solution? Spit and his escapes, disguised as the woman, running through the suburbs?
7. Jihad, out of detention, skill with flowers, his relatives, the welcome, the parties, at the funeral parlour, helping Spit, becoming more involved?
8. Spit, going to the funeral parlour, memories of the first film, the wife, the money, setting up the funeral parlour with the money, Spit and his share in the ownership? Their involvement in saving Spit?
9. Court, the police, tough attitudes towards spit, towards those in the detention centre? Hiring the lawyer, her style, pushy, ambitious, self promoting? In the court? Nile to, the past, wanting to get Spit, the prosecution in the court, Spit and his behaviour, language, the comedy with the glasses and is eventually stealing them in Tool losing them are not able to read the documents?
10. The police and the court, Chika and his pressure on the criminal, the criminal turning round, killing Chika?
11. The final Revelation, Spit and his writing on the wall, proving that he was abducted, vindicated?
12. The 21^st century Australian comedy, larrikin style?