Tommo-22
Joined Sep 2004
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Reviews2
Tommo-22's rating
Although the plot has been done before many times - stranger in a strange land - TOF handles it with charm and restraint.
Jack is a blow-in from Sydney to the close-knit oyster-farming region of the Hawkesbury River, just north of Sydney. He snares a job with rough diamond Brownie, who is smarting under the embarrassment of his estranged wife farming a lease next to his and doing much better at it. Brownie has a gabby old Irish father who beneath his verbosity is shrewd and wise to the nature of Jack's unsettled presence in the oyster farming community. Naturally, there's a pretty young thing Pearl strutting her stuff and Jack takes a shine to her and she to him. Just to complicate Jack's life, he has a financially-draining sister in tow who is apparently recovering from a serious car accident but who appears to be healthier than just about everyone else on the river. I don't think her part, or situation, is well written of delineated.
There are one or two pivotal events but nothing that manages to get out of hand or spoil the viewer's congeniality with the film. The Hawkesbury looks stunning and the actors look at home in its confines and do a good job with a script that is hardly demanding. Veteran Australian actor Jack Thompson plays Skippy, a Vietanam vet who lives in a camp on the river with fellow vets and who gives Jack the benefit of his reflections on life. Thompson is quite good, although I got the feeling his part was the eccentric that every writer is looking for to complete the full range of characters.
A nice, undemanding piece of entertainment. 7/10
Jack is a blow-in from Sydney to the close-knit oyster-farming region of the Hawkesbury River, just north of Sydney. He snares a job with rough diamond Brownie, who is smarting under the embarrassment of his estranged wife farming a lease next to his and doing much better at it. Brownie has a gabby old Irish father who beneath his verbosity is shrewd and wise to the nature of Jack's unsettled presence in the oyster farming community. Naturally, there's a pretty young thing Pearl strutting her stuff and Jack takes a shine to her and she to him. Just to complicate Jack's life, he has a financially-draining sister in tow who is apparently recovering from a serious car accident but who appears to be healthier than just about everyone else on the river. I don't think her part, or situation, is well written of delineated.
There are one or two pivotal events but nothing that manages to get out of hand or spoil the viewer's congeniality with the film. The Hawkesbury looks stunning and the actors look at home in its confines and do a good job with a script that is hardly demanding. Veteran Australian actor Jack Thompson plays Skippy, a Vietanam vet who lives in a camp on the river with fellow vets and who gives Jack the benefit of his reflections on life. Thompson is quite good, although I got the feeling his part was the eccentric that every writer is looking for to complete the full range of characters.
A nice, undemanding piece of entertainment. 7/10
Many say film in Australia was revived in the 1970s. Well, 'The Jouranlist' (1979) can't have been one of the productions to embody that accolade.
Poor script, flat acting combine to deliver an embarrassing mish-mash about a young Journalist who can't keep his trousers up no matter how hard (forgive me!) he tries. Why such an 'affliction' should be the subject of 90 minutes of celluloid is beyond me. Alfie it ain't. And there are no insights into the world of Journalism, only clichés and caricatures.
The editing rates a special mention. I can only assume that when the director Michael Thornhill viewed the finished product he had no idea what to cut and what to leave in. I understand his dilemma. The result is a series of discordant scenes which seem to bear no connection with each other and in which the actors recite lines in isolation, as if there is no one else present.
The real irony of "The Journalist" is that it features many of Australia's best actors (excluding Victoria Nicholls), most of whom made valuable contributions to the revival of the film industry in this country. 0/10
Poor script, flat acting combine to deliver an embarrassing mish-mash about a young Journalist who can't keep his trousers up no matter how hard (forgive me!) he tries. Why such an 'affliction' should be the subject of 90 minutes of celluloid is beyond me. Alfie it ain't. And there are no insights into the world of Journalism, only clichés and caricatures.
The editing rates a special mention. I can only assume that when the director Michael Thornhill viewed the finished product he had no idea what to cut and what to leave in. I understand his dilemma. The result is a series of discordant scenes which seem to bear no connection with each other and in which the actors recite lines in isolation, as if there is no one else present.
The real irony of "The Journalist" is that it features many of Australia's best actors (excluding Victoria Nicholls), most of whom made valuable contributions to the revival of the film industry in this country. 0/10