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SYDNEY -- The winner of the inaugural Australian Project Greenlight scriptwriting contest has watched one too many Las Vegas-set crime thrillers. Or maybe not enough good ones. Morgan O'Neill, a 32-year-old TV actor making his writing and directing debut with Solo, might have transplanted the fear and loathing to the streets of inner-city Sydney, but the gambling dens, flophouses and neon-lit strip joints, the smoky jazz soundtrack and the cast of shady players are all too familiar.
This somewhat contrived retread, about the efforts of a jaded hitman to extract himself from the Sydney underworld, should arouse some local curiosity (it opens July 6 in Australian theaters) but regular moviegoers will feel as if they have seen it all before.
Lending some authority to the production is Colin Friels (Malcolm, A Good Man in Africa), a veteran actor who has grown into his good looks, much like an antipodean Dennis Quaid.
He plays silver-haired Jack Barrett, an old-school enforcer who works for a group of sketchy operators called the Gentlemen. We meet him up to his elbows in blood, clutching a chainsaw and retching as he dumps body parts over the side of a boat. Rough day at the office, he explains afterward in the first of several wry one-liners.
At 53, Barrett has developed a conscience, possibly after discovering that he orphaned two children with his most recent job, and the work is literally making him sick. He wants out. Naturally, it's not that easy.
As Barrett works to disentangle himself from his life of crime, the plot snarls up with the number of low-lifes lining up to off him, from a coke-snorting cop (Vince Colosimo) to his latest victim's Vietnamese associate (Anh Do) to the Gentlemen themselves.
This is where the plot takes a sharp turn into implausibility.
A young university student named Billie (promising newcomer Bojana Novakovic) is researching a thesis on organized crime and it seems she is getting a little too close for the comfort of the Gentlemen who, despite presumably having faced down their share of drug-dealers, contract killers and cops, are made to quiver in their boots by this twentysomething's questioning.
They agree to cut Barrett Loose provided he does one last job -- bump off Billie. O'Neill, who shot his film in 21 days, sets up an effectively off-key dynamic between Barrett and Billie, but clearly manipulative plot twists dilute the power of the "surprise" ending.
Australian pay TV channel the Movie Network -- which funded the local offshoot of the Project Greenlight competition created in the U.S. by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and American Pie producer Chris Moore -- gave O'Neill AUS$1 million ($763,000) and he has turned out a polished production on that modest budget, bringing on board Academy Award nominee Marcus D'Arcy (Babe) as editor and Ben Osmo (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Strictly Ballroom) to do sound.
The visual styling of production designer Murray Picknett, a two-time AFI Award winner, creates an undertow of menace that accompanies Barrett as he moves within yet apart from a world of seedy stereotypes.
SOLO
Dendy Films pressents a Movie Network Channels/Screentime production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Morgan O'Neill
Producer: Sue Seeary
Executive producers: Sue Milliken, Bob Campbell, Chris Berry, Tony Forrest
Director of photography: Hugh Miller
Production designer: Murray Picknett
Music: Martyn Love, Damian Deboos-Smith
Costume designer: Paula Ryan
Editor: Marcus D'Arcy
Cast:
Jack Barrett: Colin Friels
Billie: Bojana Novakovic
Reno: Linal Haft
Kate: Angie Milliken
Keeling: Vince Colosimo
Kennedy: Bruce Spence
Arkan: Chris Haywood
Louis: Tony Barry
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 98 minutes...
This somewhat contrived retread, about the efforts of a jaded hitman to extract himself from the Sydney underworld, should arouse some local curiosity (it opens July 6 in Australian theaters) but regular moviegoers will feel as if they have seen it all before.
Lending some authority to the production is Colin Friels (Malcolm, A Good Man in Africa), a veteran actor who has grown into his good looks, much like an antipodean Dennis Quaid.
He plays silver-haired Jack Barrett, an old-school enforcer who works for a group of sketchy operators called the Gentlemen. We meet him up to his elbows in blood, clutching a chainsaw and retching as he dumps body parts over the side of a boat. Rough day at the office, he explains afterward in the first of several wry one-liners.
At 53, Barrett has developed a conscience, possibly after discovering that he orphaned two children with his most recent job, and the work is literally making him sick. He wants out. Naturally, it's not that easy.
As Barrett works to disentangle himself from his life of crime, the plot snarls up with the number of low-lifes lining up to off him, from a coke-snorting cop (Vince Colosimo) to his latest victim's Vietnamese associate (Anh Do) to the Gentlemen themselves.
This is where the plot takes a sharp turn into implausibility.
A young university student named Billie (promising newcomer Bojana Novakovic) is researching a thesis on organized crime and it seems she is getting a little too close for the comfort of the Gentlemen who, despite presumably having faced down their share of drug-dealers, contract killers and cops, are made to quiver in their boots by this twentysomething's questioning.
They agree to cut Barrett Loose provided he does one last job -- bump off Billie. O'Neill, who shot his film in 21 days, sets up an effectively off-key dynamic between Barrett and Billie, but clearly manipulative plot twists dilute the power of the "surprise" ending.
Australian pay TV channel the Movie Network -- which funded the local offshoot of the Project Greenlight competition created in the U.S. by Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and American Pie producer Chris Moore -- gave O'Neill AUS$1 million ($763,000) and he has turned out a polished production on that modest budget, bringing on board Academy Award nominee Marcus D'Arcy (Babe) as editor and Ben Osmo (Rabbit-Proof Fence, Strictly Ballroom) to do sound.
The visual styling of production designer Murray Picknett, a two-time AFI Award winner, creates an undertow of menace that accompanies Barrett as he moves within yet apart from a world of seedy stereotypes.
SOLO
Dendy Films pressents a Movie Network Channels/Screentime production
Credits:
Screenwriter-director: Morgan O'Neill
Producer: Sue Seeary
Executive producers: Sue Milliken, Bob Campbell, Chris Berry, Tony Forrest
Director of photography: Hugh Miller
Production designer: Murray Picknett
Music: Martyn Love, Damian Deboos-Smith
Costume designer: Paula Ryan
Editor: Marcus D'Arcy
Cast:
Jack Barrett: Colin Friels
Billie: Bojana Novakovic
Reno: Linal Haft
Kate: Angie Milliken
Keeling: Vince Colosimo
Kennedy: Bruce Spence
Arkan: Chris Haywood
Louis: Tony Barry
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 98 minutes...
- 6/13/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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