David O'ConnellMad Bastards
May 18th 2011 04:16
T.J. (Dean Daley-Jones) is a bit of a loose cannon. With no money, a brother in prison and a propensity for drowning his sorrows in alcohol, he decides to leave Perth behind to head upstate to the squalid township of Five Rivers and re-acquaint himself with a son, Bullet (Lucas Yeeda), who has no idea he exists. Drawing upon a series of real-life tales related to him by members of his cast, director Brendon Fletcher has fashioned a humanistic tale of flawed men and women struggling with the despair that rises from their struggles with identity and economic hardship.
Thankfully Fletcher’s film is not all gloom and doom – far from it. Crammed with funny interludes Mad Bastards (2011) allows for moments of quiet reflection as well, many simultaneously extracting beauty from the natural world via Allan Collins’ wonderful cinematography. It’s at these poignant waysides that the pain of error-filled ways hits hardest for T.J. and his son’s grandfather, local cop Texas (Greg Tait), a hard but fair man who emphasises the importance of family above all else.
Don’t be put off by the cast of non-professionals used to inspire the film’s rough-round-the-edges authenticity. Mad Bastards wouldn’t work without their contributions, though it’s a shame there aren’t more original components for the actors to tussle with. Daley-Jones is an imposing physical specimen and the intensity he conducts into T.J.’s frame works wonders; he remains the emotional epicentre of the film, the eye of a roving storm around which the other characters must re-adjust, especially Nella (Ngaire Pigrim), the mother of his son, a woman battling internal demons herself.
The film’s best scenes leave the protagonists sparring with an oppressive futility, desperate to defy their impotence – T.J. with his inability to alter his fortunes or forge a meaningful connection to a son who remains a stranger to him. For Bullet it's in attempting to construct a meaningful definition of what a father might mean to him.
The scenes in which Bullet and other delinquents from the community are introduced to the wide open spaces are both useful in teaching the boys valuable lessons about staying on the straight and narrow, whilst demonstrating a need to respect the immensity of the natural world.
Music, too, is vital to nourishing the film’s take on both nature’s evocative gifts and the intrinsic power of communal healing. The Pigrim Brothers, with an assist from Alex Lloyd, provide a sturdy aural backbone to sustain it in this respect (though a couple of the songs began to grate, especially when receiving an encore).
There’s much to like about Mad Bastards even if it ultimately falls prey to a limited horizon in a mildly generic narrative arc that ultimately short-changes its audience. It has undeniable character however and is populated by people whose fates we can empathise with despite their obvious, often clichéd shortcomings.
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