1994 film starring Russell Crowe and Jack Thompson.
UK import, excellent condition.
Jack Thompson (Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones) and Oscar winner* Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind) star in this "fresh spin [on an] old heart-tugging plot" (Los Angeles Times) the overprotective parent's well-intended interference with an adult child's life. "Extraordinarily funny [and] startlingly effective" (The San Francisco Examiner), this award-winning** film is mandatory viewing for anyone who's ever been a parent or had one! Harry Mitchell (Thompson) has a problem with his gay son Jeff (Crowe): Harry thinks he needs to find a mate! With a loving push out of the nest and into the gay bars of Sydney he becomes his son's biggest cheerleader. But it's Harry's secret romance with an attractive but judgmental divorce that puts father and son at odds and prompts them to discover that acceptance is a two-way street!
*2000: Actor, Gladiator **American Film Institute Award: Screenplay; Cleveland International Film Festival: Best Film; Montreal World Film Festival: Screenplay.
Australia has no shortage of he-man actors. Tops on anybody's list would be Russell Crowe and bluff, burly Jack Thompson, neither of whom looks completely at ease without a pint of lager in his hand. Thus it's a brilliant touch to cast them together in a gay comedy- - Crowe as an uncloseted young man looking for love, Thompson as his open-minded straight father, who's so eager to help his son find Mr. Right, he's actually a bit of an annoyance. The 1995 movie betrays its stage origins, especially when the characters turn to the camera to deliver conversational asides. And the one-joke premise of Thompson's unflagging enthusiasm for his son's sex life becomes almost as tiresome for the viewer as it does for the son. But it's an innocuous enough little movie, and the two actors bring their gruff likability into every scene. In retrospect, Crowe's future stardom looks blindingly obvious. --Robert Horton
