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Romper Stomper (1992)
Director: Geoffrey Wright
Writer: Geoffrey Wright
Cast: Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie
Genre: Action, Drama
About: A group of Australian skinheads who are outraged by the influx of Vietnamese immigrants to their neighborhood.
Review: Great title!...I just wish that in between their romping to abandoned cavernous buildings and stomping immigrants, Russell Crowe and the boys would have done some musing on their basic tenets of Skinheadism.
I liked parts of the film and it was surprisingly cinematic, but I wanted more on their back story...To me the most interesting aspect isn't endless fight scenes, it's the peek inside a world most of us won't ever know. I thought the movie was going to open up and give us some insight when he brought out his copy of Mein Kampf, but nothing much was said about it.
I didn't find Russell Crowe's character all that interesting.
The girl with the pervy-rich dad and the skinhead who lived with his grandmother, were the best characters. Both had some depth to them that made me want to know more about them and actually care what happened to them.
My favorite scene was where the older skinhead sells them a Nazi knife and Russell Crowe immediately knows it's a Hitler Youth dagger made at the end of the war in 1945 when quality metal was scarce...that scene told me more about his character than the rest of the film.
I did like some of the movie and the overall premise is very interesting. I'm not a fan of martial arts films and that seems to be the direction they went with the movie. I would have liked more essay, less action.
Some other scenes and aspects I liked such as:
The opening fight scene in a highway tunnel reminded me of the beating scene of a homeless man in a tunnel in A Clockwork Orange. I'm pretty sure the director was paying homage to that scene.
Gabe having an ecliptic fit on the floor and no one knowing what to do...with one skinhead stupidly mocking her....was both shocking and effective! That was a powerful scene. I felt bad for her...then when Davey comforted her it made a dynamic between him, her and Hondo...that all was interesting.
I thought the end scene was very well done and seemed quite real. I don't recall seeing the same type of shot before.
-
Romper Stomper (1992)
Writer: Geoffrey Wright
Cast: Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie
Genre: Action, Drama
About: A group of Australian skinheads who are outraged by the influx of Vietnamese immigrants to their neighborhood.
Review: Great title!...I just wish that in between their romping to abandoned cavernous buildings and stomping immigrants, Russell Crowe and the boys would have done some musing on their basic tenets of Skinheadism.
I liked parts of the film and it was surprisingly cinematic, but I wanted more on their back story...To me the most interesting aspect isn't endless fight scenes, it's the peek inside a world most of us won't ever know. I thought the movie was going to open up and give us some insight when he brought out his copy of Mein Kampf, but nothing much was said about it.
I didn't find Russell Crowe's character all that interesting.
The girl with the pervy-rich dad and the skinhead who lived with his grandmother, were the best characters. Both had some depth to them that made me want to know more about them and actually care what happened to them.
My favorite scene was where the older skinhead sells them a Nazi knife and Russell Crowe immediately knows it's a Hitler Youth dagger made at the end of the war in 1945 when quality metal was scarce...that scene told me more about his character than the rest of the film.
I did like some of the movie and the overall premise is very interesting. I'm not a fan of martial arts films and that seems to be the direction they went with the movie. I would have liked more essay, less action.
Some other scenes and aspects I liked such as:
The opening fight scene in a highway tunnel reminded me of the beating scene of a homeless man in a tunnel in A Clockwork Orange. I'm pretty sure the director was paying homage to that scene.
Gabe having an ecliptic fit on the floor and no one knowing what to do...with one skinhead stupidly mocking her....was both shocking and effective! That was a powerful scene. I felt bad for her...then when Davey comforted her it made a dynamic between him, her and Hondo...that all was interesting.
I thought the end scene was very well done and seemed quite real. I don't recall seeing the same type of shot before.
-