Gettin' Square

David Wenham as the nobel Faramir, hero of Gondor, is totally unrecognizable as the greasy-haired, twitching, whining drug addict John "Spit" Spitieri of "Gettin' Square". The film is great - it moves fast, never lets you lose interest and gives you a real emotional connection to the main characters - Barry, Dabba and Spit, all trying desperately to go straight but threatened with derailment by the plans of less-respectable acquaintances from their past. The story is great, the directing tight, the performances - especially Wenham's - top notch. His courtroom scene alone is worth the ticket price for the film.

David Wenham steals the show as the spaced out junkie "Spit". His performance in the tribunal scene is one of the greatest comedy scenes I've ever seen in a movie. This performance took it from just another caper movie to a really good movie. Freya Stafford was wasted as the juvenile love interest, she can handle meatier roles than this. Gary Sweet as good as ever and the rest of the cast was world class. Don't miss this one!

A solid example of an Aussie crime/comedy caper - but more than that, it's a brilliant display by David Wenham, who deserves much applause (and a good shower) for his portrayal of Johnny 'Spit' Spiteri.

Many things come together to make this a great Aussie film. The cinematography is clever and fresh, the script is, and the acting is superb.

Sam Worthington is Barry, recently out of prison, who lands a job as a chef in a struggling restaurant, run by Darren (the wonderful Timothy Spall), an ex-con trying to stay straight. When Darren runs into trouble with a suspect $200,000, and Barry's friend Spit runs afoul of the local gangster (Gary Sweet), they team up for a double-cross - but it's much more complicated than that.

The script is smart and devilish, but while it twists and turns, it never approaches ridiculousness. Written by prominent criminal lawyer Chris Nyst, you wonder who much is fact and how much is fiction - something here seems plausible.

That might be just the superb acting. Worthington is solid and believable, but Wenham utterly steals the show as the hapless, mullet-wearing Spit. One scene where Spit goes before a court hearing is one of the highlights of Aussie cinema of the last decade. It's stunningly scripted, brilliantly acted - and very funny.

'Gettin Square' isn't as good as 'Two Hands' - it's uneven at times, slightly plodding early on, and takes 40 minutes to really get into the script - but it's still well worth the entry price.

'Gettin' Square' is one of my favourite movies of the last few years. It's copped a fair bit of flak from critics, but in my opinion it's one of the best Australian films going around today.

The Australian film industry unfortunately doesn't have the support of local audiences that it deserves, on top of this, Australian humour doesn't seem to be very funny at all to overseas audiences and 'Gettin' Square' will undoubtedly suffer the same fate as superb Aussie films like 'Swimming Upstream'.

In an era of Americanisation in the Aussie film industry (see 'Blurred' and the soon to come 'Deck Dogz') 'Gettin Square' has strong Aussie flavour with biting humour and a smart storyline. David Wenham's performance as 'Spit' was hilarious, as was Timothy Spall's performance as Darren Barrington. While Spall and Wenham provide the humour, Sam Worthington, David Field and Gary Sweet provide the stinging taste of Australia's underworld, rehabilitation system and police corruption.

As a whole, 'Gettin' Square' is an excellent film, superbly directed by Johnathon Teplitzky that mixes comedy, drama and crime/thriller flawlessly.

See this for: David Wenham's Johnny Spit, the Weight Watcher's jokes, the soundtrack, the clever plot, the twist at the end.

Getting' Square is one of the zaniest movies I've seen all year. What really makes the movie is actor is David Wenham as Johnny "SPIT" Spitieri who plays a very dumb junkie. Some of you may know him as Faramir in Lord Of The Rings. Nobody could have played his junkie role better. I saw this movie at the Honolulu Film Festival and David Wenham was there.

Getting' Square is about three criminals who are trying to set their lives straight. Spitieri is just out of jail and trying to get himself off drugs. Barry Wirth (Sam Worthington) met Spitieri in jail, and he is released towards the start of the movie, and is also trying to clean himself up.

The Australian accents were a bit hard for me to understand at times, but that didn't much matter because the actors did such a great job. The court room scene that David Wenham did was acting at it's best. Nobody else could have played Johnny Spitieri better.