Grievous Bodily Harm

source: Grievous Bodily Harm

Grievous Bodily Harm

Stupidest plot, laughable action, and oh my God the acting are you kidding me. Only redeeming feature of this movie was it was shot on location. I always enjoy films shot on location in other parts of the world. If you're not looking for a travel log in Australia, skip this POS.

This Australian film tries desperately hard to be 'film noir' with it's convoluted and somewhat confusing storyline. But that's where any similarity ends as lots of action takes place in daylight and massive sunshine, a noir no-no. Once the story of a man searching for his missing wife emerges more, it turns out it isn't that intriguing anyway. And since she's staying what only seems a few streets away, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, except the people in this aren't that smart really... This sort of thing has been so much better in the past with classics like 'Farewell, my lovely' or more recently with 'LA Confidential.' This just isn't in the same league.

This movie was a confusing one, and I found myself struggling to comprehend it. From what I could gather, a man receives photos of his wife in rather suggestive poses and hires a cop (who turns out to be crooked) to investigate. Ordinarily, I like Bruno Lawrence films, but this one just didn't cut it. ** 1/2 out of ****

This 1988 Aussie crime thriller is set in Sydney and concerns the hunt by a cynical journalist, Colin Friels, and a tough cop, Bruno Lawrence, to catch a serial killer. (SPOILER ALERT!) The journalist manages to connect the dots faster than the cop, but they both get there in the end. There are plenty of twists and turns, and quite a dramatic end, but we are left with a bunch of questions. The film has some fine elements: some fine actors, good photography highlighting different parts of sunny Sydney and the Blue Mountains, a director who would make some fine films in later years, and some cops and journalists prepared to bend the law to get results. However, the result is somehow less than sum of its parts. Though Colin Friels and Bruno Lawrence are good, John Waters is somehow unconvincing as the villain. The main problem, I suspect, is the script, which has some strange jumps and clunky dialogue.