Mad Bastards

Australian film making seems to be finally making more films about Aboriginal people. We are now getting at least one major release each year.

Writer/director Brendan Fletcher has travelled through northern Australia and collected stories from various people to make this film. It shows very much in the story and certain scenes as they play out. You can really see a story like this happening. To me I think a more apt title for the film would have been 'Angry Bastards'. This is a group of people will a lot of anger inside them. They are very quick to anger and always seem to want to pick a fight. Of the three main characters: TJ, Nella and Bullet they all seem to get angry in their scenes. Although Bullet's anger is more caged and comes out in subtler ways. The story also does not follow the conventional path either. TJ seems to take a while in getting to his son. He has to go through a lot of emotional baggage before he actually gets to meet his son which doesn't come until later in the film. TJ is very much the angriest person in the film so he has to try and remain calm before the meet.

Dean Daley-Jones was one of the writers on the film and so some of these events come from his personal experiences. He does an excellent job of conveying TJ's anger. He is very much a man with many demons and he can let this out at any time. His fellow cast members are mostly non-professional actors and so they feel very real in their performances. Ngaire Pigram is very good as Nella who must struggle with her feelings for TJ and how they impact her son. Lucas Yeeda is wonderful as Bullet.

Another great film about native Australians. Make sure you get a chance to see this so we can encourage more of these films to be made.