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The
Wannabes
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Nick Giannopoulos' The Wannabes, we are proudly told, premiered at New York's prestigious Tribeca Film Festival. Might this have had something to do with the fact that Felix Williamson's turn as American film star Bill Gennaro bears more than a passing resemblance to Bob De Niro – the founder and eminence grise of that festival? Be that as it may, the thought that this pathetically bad comedy represented Australian cinema overseas, even for a fleeting ninety minutes, is enough to plunge any local moviegoer into despair. Giannopoulos, in a bold and rather unwise career move, has dropped the wog humour. What's left? This film has the merest trace of a good idea: a rotten troupe of kids' performers – actually a criminal gang trying to crack a mansion – become an enormous hit. Only our hero Danny (Giannopoulos) has a vaguely earnest, moral viewpoint on proceedings. Most of the topics for humour in this film already seemed old-hat when they appeared on television shows like The Comedy Company fifteen years previously. So we get flat gags about Flashdance (1983) and disco, kung fu (which Giannopoulos confuses with Tai Chi), and drama class exercises. The film's leaden attempts to join the trash comedy fad are excruciating. As a debuting director, Giannopoulos makes Yahoo Serious look like Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Desperately mugging actors stand stiffly in front of a camera, and that's about it. Almost one third of the movie bogs down in a particularly ugly set. Composer David Hirschfelder takes the dreaded genre of tinkly, upbeat "comedy music" to its ghastliest height. Anyone interested in studying the depiction of gender in Australian popular culture will, alas, have to spend a bit of time with this shocker. It would take extensive psychoanalysis to figure out Giannopoulos' warped views of male and female sexuality, especially whenever gays or Asians enter the frame. © Adrian Martin September 2003 |
