This film comes oh so very close to being a genuine attempt at Australian urban drama but its let down by absolutely awful acting on behalf of one or two actors that really distracts from some amazing acting and genuinely menacing Zeus and some hugely over choreographed fight scenes that belong in a Hollywood shot em up action flick not in a realistic urban drama. the other problem is that Australia has many different types of youth gang from the traditional American/English types to biker and surfer gangs the main reason why these youths are involved in gangs and thug lifestyle is not to do with poverty and horrible circumstances (although I'm sure that is the case some of the time) the vast majority of it seems to be bored teens replicating what they see on TV and hear in rap music in fact most of the people in this movie come from beautiful suburban neighbourhoods drive nice cars and have expensive clothes they come across as obnoxious posers who have no sense of national identity which is of course the point of the film anyway but you just cant help feel thats its pointless to point a camera at a group of rich kids who live in paradise and say "look their pretending to ghetto kids" because everyone accept them can see it anyway and one day their going to look back and cringe at how they used to behave if they're mature enough and mange to survive the little world they've created. thankfully there is more to the story than that, there's racial tension which oddly isn't usually a component of an urban drama so in itself could of been ground braking but its weighed down too heavily by the main clichéd urban drama story of big brother former hood sees little brother going down same route which lead him to jail and must delve in to save his brother (bullet boy, green street, American history X) in short this wants to stand up next to the big boys of the genre (Boyz N The Hood, Menace 2 Society, Babylon, Bullet Boy, La Haine, City Of God, Tribu) but in the end is overly choreographed badly acted and in the end doesn't really have a lot to say about what is probably the most civilised western nations problems of young suburban Asian Australian men imitating black American/British men whilst using race as a subplot (which in itself seems like a total hypocrisy) still worth a look to see a real side of Australia that is scarcely represented on screen and does leave you hoping the Australian film makers realise there are story's to be told in the suburbs with real people in real circumstances and despite what Australia thinks the rest of the English speaking world have no problem understanding their accents and dialects we watch neighbours, home and away, prisoner cell block H, chopper, mad max and much more just as much as we do home grown material and frankly its an insult to our intelligence and to Australians themselves to think otherwise.
Review of The Combination
