You Can't Stop the Murders

(Anthony Mir, Australia, 2003)

The makers of this film – director Anthony Mir and his co-writers Gary Eck and Akmal Saleh – go out on a limb when they mock (in the press kit) "comedies made without any comedians" – and they mean comedians of the stand-up-on-a-live-stage kind so popular and prevalent in Australia.

Comedies without comedians? What about Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby (1938), Jimmy Stewart in Harvey (1950) or Meryl Streep in Adaptation (2002)? Were they (or the films) any less funny because they were professionally trained, dramatic actors?

Mir, Eck and Saleh are, as you may have guessed, stand-up comedians. They have not only created this tiresome piece, but also star in it. They have tackled one of most difficult of all forms – the mystery-comedy – and fumbled.

Of course, there is no hard and fast rule for how to make a good, well-crafted comedy, or how to determine who should be involved in it. One need only peruse the movies spun off from the American television show Saturday Night Live to find a couple of inspired, comedian-led films (such as the great Superstar [1999]) and many shockers. People including Lily Tomlin and Jerry Lewis have effortlessly blurred the lines between the roles of comedian, actor, writer and director.

You Can't Stop the Murders, however, is beyond redemption. It's a clumsy effort from the word go, with a leaden rhythm (ninety-seven minutes pass like three hours), many flat jokes and several uninspired performances.

Occasionally, near the start and right at the end, there are some modest sight gags about small-town life, Jacques Tati-style, that work well. But the laboured attempt to build an enigma around the identity of the person murdering a string of locals never takes hold. If you can't take the characters even slightly seriously, there's no hope of caring whether they are going to live or die.

If there is a rule that governs lazy, contemporary comedy – especially in Australia – it appears to be: if a joke works once, it will work ten times. And – rule number two – if the joke stops working, that's OK too, because then it becomes a shambling, funny-unfunny spectacle.

Australian comedians who hope to capture the big screen need to start studying the work of a writing-directing-acting genius like Hong Kong's Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer, 2001) because, in his movies, no comic idea is frittered away so casually.

© Adrian Martin March 2003