Mullet (2001)

Too much of everything

Must See Movie...

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

People seem to either love or hate Mullet (and Caesar for that matter). I enjoyed this one, although Caesar's work often comes across as self-indulgent. I went in not expecting anything in particular, and therefore wasn't disappointed (as many other reviewers apparently were). The genre is "a slice of life", although for about 90% of the plot, it appears to be building to something else - possibly this is what disappoints. I was pleasantly surprised when it resisted the obvious resolution. Visually a feast, and with an appropriate sound-track, this is worth seeing.

Well, I never ate Mullet (an Australian fish living in muddy waters), but this movie didn't necessarily encourage me to try. I saw the movie in a festival in Germany without subtitling. So I thought (cause my Australian English is really not that good) I am somehow missing most of the jokes, but looking at the audience, maybe there were not so many to start with. The story is: A guy nicknamed Mullet comes back to his home village after he left for three years without saying good bye. In the meantime his brother married his ex girl-friend. The film now shows how the people react to him coming back. Most of them squarely tell him to bugger off again, but he doesn't understand why and refuses to change. I think I already gave this movie more story than it has. The characters are going nowhere so is the plot. The end comes out of the blue, very unsatisfying. The actors are o.k. but cannot save a weak script. Save your money for a good Australian beer at your local pub.

Cor, wot a crap film! Like many others, no doubt, I went to "Mullet" expecting to see a rather humorous film. What I actually DID see was some mundane piece of rubbish that went nowhere and had me leaving the cinema scratching my head and thinking (in the words of the immortal D-Gen "Late Show" song), "What was that all about?" Basically, this movie revolves around some guy who goes back to the country town where he used to live after being away from the place for about three years. Once he gets there, what happens? Well not a lot really. He just goes around pi**ing everyone off (something that he apparently has quite a talent for), and catching mullet from one of the local rivers (an activity that proves the source of his nickname, incidentally; to my surprise, this movie had nothing whatsoever to do with mullet haircuts). Oh, and he also discovers that his old girlfriend has married his brother. Annoyingly, when he runs into this woman, the first thing she does is punch him: just another annoying example of the double standard which decrees that, when a guy so much as slaps a woman in a movie (even if she's behaving in a truly obnoxious fashion), he is evil incarnate, yet when a woman punches out a guy (usually for no other reason than because she's throwing a big childish temper tantrum), we're supposed to applaud her actions or worse, find them funny.Anyway, without wanting to waste too much more time commenting on this film (cos it really doesn't warrant the effort; I'm only doing this because I'm bored), I'd just like to say that, while the main character is vaguely amusing at times (and has a few funny lines), this movie really isn't worth the effort. To paraphrase a quote I found scribbled on a desk in a lecture theatre back in my university days: "Mullet is about as interesting as the time Mr Boringworth won the World Water Drinking Championship in the City of Drying Paint." Go watch some long-lived radioisotopes decay instead.

Spoilers herein.I expect to be one of the few North Americans to see this Australian production as I cannot imagine it being released here. I saw it a block from the Opera House during a visit to Sydney, and found it self-referential in that way where the form of the film reflects its content.The content involves (mostly) poking fun at a particular type of rural Australian town. It exploits limited provincial vision and superficiality. But it itself has limited provincial vision and superficiality. And the relationship between layers is wholly unintended and artless.The sister gives a good performance.