IT takes a special kind of skill to confect and direct screenplays as unremittingly stupid, improbable, potty-mouthed, repetitively laboured, purportedly comedic yet so unfunny as both “Inbetweeners” and their 30 TV episode ancestors.
Damon Beesley could probably retire young to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle on the profits of four louche lads from the Midlands who in this film are backpacking in Australia blowing their student loans.
He populates the plot with Brit twits, in England’s green and pleasant land and here as backpackers or immigrant residents. His native Australian characters are written to be amusing, but reconstructed enough to reflect Aussie lifestyle and culture with a measure of fondness and respect.
Beesley’s film may go down a real treat on that little island off the French coast. Following brief visits to Sydney’s club scene and a culturally-acclimatised uncle, the four Pommie poltroons spend time at a backpackers hostel in Byron Bay and its water park before heading for Birdsville (the notion of a horse stud there draws a very long bow indeed).
Beesley delivers a gentle homily about perils of inland travel for the inexperienced and ill-equipped but excludes dangerous and other wildlife from the film’s catalogue of hazards.
Contrived situations endure long beyond their use-by moments, especially when trying to squeeze the last drop of comedy from body wastes.
The screenplay’s arrant follies make few demands on the cast. The dialogue is peppered with words that were once anathema but now may be heard in shopping malls spoken by girls wearing school uniform.
I had to see it. You don’t!
At Hoyts, Dendy, Capitol 6 and Limelight
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