CHARLIE AND BOOTS
Australia, 2009, 101 minutes, Colour.
Paul Hogan, Shane Jacobsen, Morgan Griffin, Roy Billing, Rebecca Ashaa, Reg Evans, Deborah Kennedy, Val Lehmann, Anne Phelan, Beverly Dunn.
Directed by Dean Murphy.
Here is an easy-going comedy, serious in its themes, but lightly funny because of the characters and situations. And it features two Australian actors who have become icons, one from the 70s and 80s, the other recently.
The first is Paul Hogan, who entertained us with television skits and sketches after working on painting Sydney Harbour Bridge (which provides the final quip of this film). Then, he became Crocodile Dundee, advertised putting shrimps on the barbie and tried a few more films like Almost an Angel and Flipper, and was successful only in Crocodile Dundee sequels. He made an amusing comedy some years ago, Strange Bedfellows, and now Charlie and Boots. He hasn't really changed his style all that much but here he is a grieving widower who has given up on much of life. He is Charlie.
The second icon is Shane Jacobson, perhaps better known as Kenny. He is Boots (and you will enjoy finding out why he doesn't use the name which his mother, keen on popular singers, actually gave him).
Hogan and Jacobson make an entertaining odd couple.
This is a very Australian comedy, not just because of the stars and the characters they create, nor the jokes and Aussie humour style, but because it takes father and son and the audience on a trip through Victoria and New South Wales, up through Queensland with the destination, Cape York, the northern tip of the continent. This is a trip that son thinks father needs to come to terms with his grief. It is also a trip that enables father and son to come to terms with each other, father fulfilling a promise to take his son fishing at Cape York. The trip elicits memories for Charlie. Charlie wants it to offer opportunities for Boots to start dating again. They meet a range of Aussie outback types: a 16 year old who wants to sing at Tamworth, various waitresses, a lady truckie, a north Queensland pilot, speeding tow truck drivers with our heroes car connected (and a Queensland policeman who wants to book the towed truck for speeding).
Plenty of scenery and plenty of outback Australian life, plenty of sentiment and plenty of humour.
1.Paul Hogan and Shane Jacobsen as Australian film icons? Their past? Together?
2.A piece of Australiana, the east coast of Australia, the tour of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland? Enjoyable?
3.A comic film, an emotional film – about ordinary blokes?
4.The range of the tour, southern Victoria and western Victoria, the fishing ports? Maryborough and rural towns? Echuca, the Murray and the steamers? Hay and the New South Wales outback? The countryside, the sheep? Gilgandra, the motels, the dancing? Tamworth and country song? The hall? Tenterfield and the thickshakes? Emerald and the rodeo? The northern Queensland landscapes, the fields? The flight, Cape York, the Daintree Forest? The Barrier Reef? The beaches of northern Australia? The musical score and songs?
5.The prologue about Gracie, Charlie and his grief, Boots and his brother? The flashbacks? The cemetery? Charlie and his being in the house alone, grieving, not wanting to do anything?
6.Graeme and his hard work on the farm, sense of responsibility, wife, devoted to his mother, to his father? The relationship with Boots?
7.Boots, his real name Julio Iglesias? His past, his marriage to Teresa, the joy of the child, Ben’s death and his mother supervising? The grief of husband and wife, his wife making plans for them to reunite? The funeral and the aftermath, his father sitting in the dark, getting out the car, the old promise about fishing in Cape York?
8.The relationship between father and son, the tension? The blame? The effect of Gracie’s death? The memories of Ben’s death? Going, driving, Charlie cantankerous? The remarks, the jokes, the put-downs? The variety of people on the way, the bowling women and their driving and hard attitudes, the friendly truckie and Charlie trying to avoid her? Asking the waitresses about marriage, trying to link Charlie with the waitresses? Charlie and his decision to get on the bus, it not going in the right direction? At the motels, Boots’s snoring, arguments about driving? Charlie starting to enjoy it?
9.Passing through New South Wales, Charlie’s memories, as a lad, his hard work, meeting people, meeting Gracie, their life together? The revelation about her affair with the schoolteacher? Charlie being so open and talking with his son?
10.Boots, his character, patience, the effect of the trip, its being spontaneous? His exasperation, yet the bonding? The Big Koala, the argument about salt on food, the food and meals, the motels, the dance, the rodeo? Breaking down – being towed and the tower speeding and the police ticket? The obtuse policeman wanting to book them?
11.The meeting with Jess, her age, her boyfriend, open about sex? Talking, ignorant about culture? Their getting her a room? Her leaving, the tape and the music? Meeting her again, stealing the guitar from the boyfriend, the break-in? Hiding his truck while he was at the toilet? Her singing in Tamworth, fulfilment of dreams? Singing during the final credits?
12.Roly and Cape York, the wet season, his plane, primitive? His prim wife not liking improper jokes? The flight to Cape York, landing on the beach? The fishing, the achievement of the dream? Father and son and relationships?
13.The cross-section of people around Australia? Men and women, ages, different occupations?
14.The Australian spirit and style of the film – and the final joke about painting Sydney Harbour Bridge?
