DOWN UNDER

Only a brave filmmaker would attempt to produce a movie concerning the 2005 Cronulla riots, especially a black comedy. Such a film could easily be misconstrued as a racial slur and potentially rekindle hostile feelings amongst sensitive movie-goers if the treatment wasn’t right.

However, writer/director Abe Forsythe has successfully made a relevant comment on society with his latest offering about the ethnic clash which unfolds when two carloads of ignorant misfits from both sides meet in the dead of night.

Forsythe has written a script with just the right balance of violence and humour and gives credence to neither the Lebanese nor the Australian gangs. All characters on both sides have equal levels of idiocy and dysfunctionality and are justifiably portrayed as stereotyped, racist hoodlums who mirror each other perfectly.

This Australian film is hilarious entertainment, but more importantly underneath the verbal profanities and tomfoolery lies a story which delivers a very important message to all audiences, regardless of their ethnicity, about the senselessness of social intolerance. (MMo)

★★★1/2