THE mind boggles. Stephan Elliott who wrote and directed the joyous, clever and delectably funny “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” directed this farrago of bad-tasting, low comedy.
David (XavierSamuel) and three bogan mates fly to Oz where tomorrow he’s marrying Mia Ramme on her MP father’s sheep property in the edge of one of the spectacular chasms delineating the Blue Mountains.
Dad’s electoral success rides on the back of his champion merino Rammse. As if that’s not an insult to the good sense of the Australian electorate, the film offers more and worse of the same ilk.
“A Few Best Men” certainly provokes laughter but it is screamingly unfunny. On Australia Day, a moderate-sized audience (including, sitting beside me, a pre-pubescent girl-child who would have broken the law by being there except that she had an accompanying adult!) laughed at every gag, pratfall and bad joke in Dean Craig’s crude, irrational, uninformed screenplay.
I waited for even one joke that Oscar Wilde might have admired. It never arrived.
It doesn’t get any better than that. As Mia’s sister, the film’s only character with a grasp of reality, the joyously bigly-built Rebel Wilson gives its best performance. Olivia Newton-John plays the girls’ mother, not well.
Laura Brent is a pallid bride. As the self-appointed bogan leader, Kris Marshall tries hard, but the screenplay gives him little support.
Wondering what he’s saying back home about his Australian work experience and the quality of Australian films is a mildly frustrating exercise.
Despite giving a measured performance, the Merino playing Rammse does not get a credit.At Dendy, Greater Union and Hoyts
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![Teacher Vanessa Jones has been living in Higgins since 2001, and while she loves the area, she says she is “fed up” with the neglectful ACT government.
The Higgins shops have been completely abandoned, says Vanessa, preventing the opportunity for residents to have a community-centred space to socialise.
They only received bins nine months ago, she says, and requests for a water station and repairs to the bus station have gone unanswered.
“It’s very, very slow,” says Vanessa.
“I asked for the zebra crossing on Fullagar [Crescent] to be repainted, and we had to wait about six or nine months.
“That’s just such a long time… we pay a lot of rates.”
Vanessa says assistance from the government only seems to go to communities with time-rich and assertive communities, leaving places such as Higgins, where the majority of households have both adults working full-time and English may not be the first language of the family, at an automatic disadvantage.
“If you’ve got two people working, paying a mortgage, raising two or three kids, they don’t have the time,” says Vanessa.
Vanessa says the lack of attention quieter places such as Higgins is receiving is starting to look a lot like favouritism.
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