Linbeymusol
Wonderful character development!
SeeQuant
Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction
Neive Bellamy
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Guillelmina
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
rnpilot
The first time my husband and I watched the film, we missed a lot of the humor as we were taking the film too seriously. We had to watch it again to catch all the stuff we missed. We've seen it several times now and love it. We plan to purchace a copy.
nz man
Maybe if you are uptight and too serious you will not like this black comedy, but the four of us loved it! "We" were from 23 yrs to 53 yrs, including Japanese, New Zealand, and American nationalities. I often steer clear of black humour because it can be too weird and cruel, but the Aussies did their normal brilliant work on this film and I do recommend it.There are so many small and big things in this movie that are hugely LAUGH-OUT-LOUD, that we thoroughly enjoyed it.So, grab a drink, put up your feet, forget about being being conventional, expect the unusual... and prepare for a FUN time (with some serious messages under all of it as well!).
spmovies
I really enjoyed this movie, as did the two others who attended with me. The humour is quirky and often unexpected. The message of the movie is, in my view, make the best of what life throws at you -- and for the main character, life throws quite a bit!!
Steve Baker
The latest Australian film Siam Sunset is a mixed bag, a blend of styles and ideas, often attractive and entertaining but as a whole pretty sloppy. But there's enough there to ensure a pretty rosy sunset. An English paint technologist (that's new!), miserable after the on screen, bizarre, death of his wife (remember this is a comedy) wins a bus tour from Adelaide to Darwin. The other tourists are ugly Aussies.
Once the quirky Australian flavour is established, most effectively by Roy Billing as Bill Leach the tour bus operator from hell, predictably, the tour becomes a comic nightmare, and a rather formulaic one in spite of some surprising plot details. The English fish out of water in our bush theme has become something of a tradition in recent Australian films. Oscar And Lucinda, Welcome To Woop Woop, Sirens and even Priscilla Queen Of The Desert where the proper, effete and English Terrence Stamp drag queen tries to make sense of outback customs spring to mind. Getting back to nature, or at least nearly perishing in the Australian desert seems to be considered to be a sure way to personal growth according to this genre. And not just for foreigners. On this particular bus to hell, an Australian Vietnamese, an atrocious singer songwriter, a masculine female army reservist, an overbearing tour bus operator, assorted be holidayed subrubanites and an urban lass on the run, face comic, sometimes ghastly dusty terror and learn from the experience. But for the most part the bit players aren't afforded enough interest by first time feature director John Polsen. They're just character bit players in a film full of bit playing plot elements. Danielle Cormack (the pregnant lead in Topless Women Talk About Their Lives) plays Grace, the female foil for our pommie paint specialist Perry played by Linus Roache (Priest). She's stolen a lot of money from her crooked doctor boyfriend Martin (Ian Bliss) and to escape joins the bus tour. She has the look of jail about her from the start, a hardness that is believable and more remarkable given her very different role and demeanor in Topless. Grace and Perry are effective even if they have to make do with some terrible scenes, especially one where they decide to throw paint against a wall. Some of the set ups just don't work, some are very effective. The elimination of the head villain is memorable but his character is for the most part far too obvious. Siam Sunset begins with an atrocious factory scene, a poorly imagined car washing (would you believe) sequence and then a strange death. But I can't stand car washing or room painting scenes featuring Paltrow young love!
Hopes of another Sweetie or Love Serenade, Death In Brunswick or at least Welcome To Woop Woop sprang to mind; macabre Australian black comedies, but Siam Sunset only gave hints. John Polsen (the gay boy in The Sum Of Us) just flirted with that and with about six other genres and left us with a film that was much less than the sum of its parts.