SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

snake77 One of those films I found myself liking a lot, but it's difficult to say exactly why. The Hard Word has a little bit of everything going at once - heist film, love story, comedy, and drama. It could be (and was) marketed as a thriller about lowlife criminals, double crosses and crime not paying - in other words an obvious Australian-style Tarantino rip-off like the boring and derivative "Two Hands". However it seems to take its cues more from the kind of slower paced, character-based crime movies that were popular from the 70's.Often movies like this one choose style over substance, and skitter along on simplistic scripts and dumb dialogue. Not the case here at all-The Hard Word has enough going in both departments to keep you more than interested and entertained, a credit to writer/director Scott Roberts. The music in this film is also worth mentioning - it's very good and matches the style of the film perfectly. What makes the movie special is an amazing, low-key performance from Guy Pearce, whose talent becomes more evident every time he graces the screen. Playing one of three incorrigible but non-violent bank robbing brothers, he manages to make his character watchable, interesting and original. Co-star Rachel Griffiths plays his sneaky, trashy, two-timing wife; her performance is not quite up to Pearce's, but doesn't do anything to weigh the film down, and most of the other actors are top-notch. I don't think this film did much business in the US (yet another indie that probably played on about three screens and no one heard about), but I predict it will find an audience on video and could even become a bona fide cult classic.

Chris Knipp The Hard Word introduces us to Dale, Shane, and Mal Twentyman, three brothers Down Under and all in the same jail. Through their crooked lawyer Frank (Robert Taylor) they all get released the same day to do a heist the lawyer has arranged for them. They succeed, but then get thrown back in jail again, with the lawyer keeping the swag. He's also got Dale's (Guy Pearce's) wife. The gall of this Frank! Why do they put up with this? The wife, Carol, played by Six Feet Under's Rachel Griffiths, would be great if she didn't look so much like Laura Dern played by a man in drag: but she's hard all right. The wonderfully lean Pearce, happy, it would be seem, to be working back home (and none too concerned if the job has some rough edges) plays with a grungy panache that's smooth and understated. He and the actors playing his brothers Shane (Joel Edgerton) and Mal (Damien Richardson) are all plainly having a lot of fun, which viewers can't help but share. It's not really about verisimilitude so much as it's about that fun, and the surprise twists, and secret language among intimates. You don't remember that first heist, though you may remember how bloody the next one gets when it goes wrong, how spectacularly bold the setting is (the Melbourne Cup award celebration) and the cow museum where the swag gets hidden. But the continuity and suspense are not strong elements, if indeed they exist. The standout moments are just that – moments -- such as when the three first get out and order a meal and the powerful and rage-prone Shane has a fit because his fries are curled instead of straight and he's given a Coke instead of a Pepsi; or when the same Shane gets a lady counselor for his anger problem and makes love to her in the jail reception room. That moment is priceless. You've rarely seen the rug chewed up with such zest. Edgerton overacts outrageously, but he makes it a lot of fun to watch. Brother Mal is a butcher practicing his trade in prison, and that leads to some fairly crude running jokes, to coin a phrase. He's shy, but women fall all over him. Pearce, as mentioned, is all sly knowingness and appealing leonine sleaze and that makes him an appealing contrast to his brothers and sets him up clearly as the brain of the family. But somehow the screenplay doesn't quite let him have a fully realized character, perhaps because for all his smarts he lets the three of them be walked over by Frank and Carol. (Carol does, however, prove loyal at the end. And Frank does, indeed, have a fitting fate.)This movie has many enjoyable moments. But as this description already shows, it's a collection of riffs rather than a coherent whole; for all the juicy dialogue and colorful characterizations and quirky scenes, it doesn't have enough momentum, excitement, or suspense going for it for a crime story.And when you think about it, none of it makes much sense. How could the three crooks get out of jail to do that job, and then land right back in? If they're such competent robbers that they can take all the winnings of the Melbourne Cup even when an unnecessary sadistic accomplice (`Tarzan,' Dorian Nkono) makes the scene go horribly wrong and totally violates their motto, `Nobody gets hurt,' why would they let Frank screw them over and over? And how indeed could they have even begun to rob the Melbourne Cup with such minimal preparation? The authorities are alerted, and they flee on foot: how is it that they get away with huge trash bags full of cash? And how come the three brothers wind up running a resort hideaway if Frank later picked up the swag? And finally, how could Frank come and propose another, bigger job after double-crossing them twice big time?After his successful international choices, notably LA Confidential and Memento, I guess Guy Pearce though he'd enjoy doing something lower keyed back home. And he did. And he didn't make too bad a choice. But he didn't hit it lucky, either. This will appeal to Guy Ritchie fans. It will also awaken memories of Fifties and Sixties English crime movies. Robert Taylor as Frank makes a B Picture bad guy with a fake tan and generic suits.

Tiger_Mark What is Guy Pearce thinking? This guy has a ton of talent and has made two memorable films (LA Confidential, Memento). However, he continues to waste his time with these types of stories and people start to forget who he is. I count myself as a huge fan of Mr. Pearce and I was one of about five people in the theater to see this film on the first day. Well, I thought that I had stumbled on an A&E television series from Australia, because that is what I saw. This film is weak, the story is scattered and the performances are lost. It is an Australian copy of "Oceans Eleven" or some other lame American caper. Moreover, it ends so badly, you don't mind, because you want it to be over. Slick trailer and movie poster, but a boring waste of time for a movie.

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre 'The Hard Word' is an excellent, well-paced Australian movie, straddling the genres of the American noir caper film and the British thick-ear crime drama. Some of the sequences in this movie remind me of scenes in 'The Asphalt Jungle', 'The Killing', 'La Jetee', the Peter Sellers comedy 'Two-Way Stretch' and even 'Eating Raoul' ... but 'The Hard Word' is definitely a one-off original, and it's very good.The early scenes in this film take place in the Australian prison system. I've done some prison time Down Under (in my original name, before I changed it), and I found these scenes extremely realistic. Seppos and Poms (Yanks and Brits) will have difficulty understanding the Strine slang in this movie; for instance, when an inmate shouts 'Half yer (expletive) luck!', it's not instantly clear to non-Australians that this means 'I wish I was half as lucky as you.' Also, American audiences will be confused by this movie's references to racetrack 'bookies'. In Australia (as in Britain, but unlike in the States), bookies are lawful businessmen ('turf accountants') who privately take bets at sporting events, as independent contractors.And most confusing of all for audiences outside Australia: some of the dialogue in 'The Hard Word' is spoken in 'butcher talk'. This is never explained in the movie, so I'll reveal that butcher talk (or 'rehctub klat') is the dialect used by (real-life) Australian criminals for covert conversations in public ... in which every word is spoken BACKWARDS, very rapidly. Even if you know the secret, you won't understand a conversation in 'butcher' unless you've practised a lot. (In Britain, criminals have a gimmick called 'backslang' which is a simpler version of the same thing.) Several times in 'The Hard Word', the dialogue is brilliantly ambiguous, carrying two meanings at the same go.Three felons are released on the same day: violent Dale, easy-going Malcolm and Pepsi-swilling mother-obsessed Shane. (The dialogue identifies them as brothers; they don't look remotely alike, but that line explains why they stick together no matter what.) As soon as they get out, our lads participate in an armoured-car robbery that's been set up by their crooked lawyer Frank ... but Frank might be setting them up for a fall. And while the lads were 'inside', Frank has been having a go with Dale's sexy wife Carol. Rachel Griffiths, who plays Dale's wife, is not conventionally beautiful ... but in this film she gives one of the sexiest performances I've ever seen on screen.SLIGHT SPOILERS COMING. There are some eye-catching frame compositions in this film; all credit to director/scripter Scott Roberts. But several pieces of business seem to be set up only to create odd images on screen. A rival gangster lures Dale into a trap by disguising himself as Dale's wife and then hiding in their bed with a gun; I found this wildly unlikely. Frank kills another gangster by cramming a lava lamp into his mouth: no blood, no broken teeth; just an interesting visual composition. One long sequence takes place inside a restaurant shaped like a giant cow.An actor named Robert Taylor (doesn't he know that this name's been used before?) is very good as Frank, the brothers' crooked lawyer. Frank dies a horrible death. How to get rid of the corpse? We know that Malcolm is handy with a sausage-grinder, and in the next scene we see him grilling some FRANK-furters on the barbie. That pun is no coincidence. (Damien Richardson is a revelation as Malcolm.)On several occasions, the crooks jeopardise their own well-planned caper by brawling or arguing; I found this a very accurate depiction of criminal behaviour. Yet there's one very implausible plot twist during the robbery at the Melbourne Cup, when Shane is supposed to open a locked door by typing a 4-figure number into a numeric keypad ... but a henchman named Tarzan insists on doing it himself, even though he's dyslexic. Doesn't Tarzan realise that his dyslexia disqualifies him from this job? Sure enough, he mucks it up.During the caper sequences, I kept expecting to see the cliché shot from every caper film ... when a swag-bag rips open, and banknotes go flying in all directions. Blessedly, that hackneyed image never came. For most of its length, 'The Hard Word' commendably avoids clichés. I thought Rhondda Findleton quite sexy as an anger-management counsellor with a semi-Louise Brooks hairbob, but I was annoyed when her character became that prison-movie cliché: the sexy female prison staffer who goes home every night and can get any man she wants on the outside, yet who becomes sexually involved with one of the inmates a few minutes after she meets him! I couldn't believe that this woman would be having sex with Shane ... it would have been much more plausible if she had merely **led him on**, arousing herself with his sexual frustration while offering him no release.At the very end of this flick, the three brothers and Carol are striding purposefully towards the camera. 'Please', I thought, 'please do NOT commit that horrible cliché of freeze-framing the final shot.' Instead of a freeze-frame, the final image went into a slo-mo ... which is also a cliché, but not quite so hackneyed yet. Despite a few complaints, I'm vastly impressed with this highly entertaining movie. I'll rate 'The Hard Word' 8 points out of 10. Nice one, cobber!