The Firm Man

John Duigan's first film is a bit like a dream or a drug trip. It is an absurdist story of a man who gets a highly sought-after job at The Firm, a rich and bizarre organisation with odd rituals and costumes, where people speak in funny accents and he is given meaningless jobs to complete by an odd couple of guys, one tall and one short, in funny hats. The film seems to have been aiming to be a Fellini-esque or Monty Pythonesque comment on current society and capitalism, but the jokes fall flat and it is a tedious wander around ill-conceived Alice in Wonderland-type situations. Peter Cummins is ok as the main character, but everyone else looks like they are in a school pantomime. The acting is very stagey. Fortunately, Duigan and Australian cinema both got better than this.