Rikky and Pete

Australian cinema has always captivated me. Their cinema is refreshing. "Rikky and Pete" would revive memories of the young rebel in one's life. As a film, you cannot compare it with great cinema of top directors--yet it is charming because it captures the non-conformist in all of us. The mechanical genius Pete invents a gadget that uses the childish paper-plane concept to deliver a newspaper. The brother sister bonding is well portrayed. The jabs at soft-headed evangelists are also well done. The anti-establishment note of the film is the refrain throughout the running time--with one realistic line "I am afraid" coming from the jailed Pete after contemplating the willfully open jail door.

While the film is about cars, inventions, inefficient cops, Eartha Kitt, loonies--the work appears disjointed and immature. Yet some of the minor characters are superb. Examples are the two ladies--the young Tetchie Agbayani as Flossie (Pete's girlfriend at the mine) and Dorothy Alison as Pete's rich mother.

The element of satire that runs through conversation and actions lifts up the product to a level of above average cinema.