Four years after the groundbreaking New Zealand movie Once Were Warriors was released to worldwide acclaim, we had a movie from Australia (which isn't far from Australia according to my world map) called The Boys. From what I learned, it was based on a true story of a gruesome event in Sydney, which is the capital city of New South Wales, the largest state in Australia. Anyway, the pacing draws a lot of suspense and the slow cooker starts boiling from the very beginning.

David Wenham plays Brett Sprague and Toni Collette plays Michelle. Collette's role was a far cry from Muriel's Wedding for sure.

None too unrealistic account of westie sons in a fibro house with a chicken wire fence. Bang in the stubbies, daggy haircuts, goatees, and scabby jeans and that is just about the whole package. Based loosely around a horrendous crime, the film really shows the power of fear and how a sinister bully can infect and create an atmosphere for all to choke on. Brett is well acted and Jackie has i right when she says they all felt safer when he was in jail. The unrealistic part is that all the sons have their liberty and there is not an ankle bracelet to be seen. You could say that being a westie means you don't have a chance but Toni Collette comes from sunny downtown Blacktown so it seems some get out. That she was back in a washing shed for this flick was mildly amusing.

Not a cheery film by any means, more a hopeless account of a funny kind of low bottom snobbery - you all think yer better than us cos we're scum and we don't want yer pity but what chance do we have cos no one does nuthin for us.

I'm surprised by the negative reviews I've read here so far, but, thankfully, there are some great positive summaries offsetting these.

I don't know whether it's "The Great Aussie Film" or not, but it's a great film, alright, and like a few members here, I've known people like these, and having known them, have absolutely no sense of sympathy for them. The experiences I draw from are from a working class childhood... and, interestingly enough, I guess, the worst, overtly violent characters came from lower income families (the covertly nasty ones are another story entirely). I recall no books in their apartments/townhouses, no value on education, their TVs droning endlessly, little to no parental interest -- much less control -- of any kind with those kids (unless one or the other parent took the time to kick the crap out of one or the other of them). My capacity for empathy goes only so far: those people were like human piranhas, every one of them. I suppose part of the film's point is asking what creates characters like these.

There is none of the ubiquitous overt violence common to just about all films now: something the director deserves high marks for, and all performances were outstanding. An Australian poster on a bulletin board recommended it, and he was dead on. Alas, I could only get it as a used VHS tape, but here's to hoping it'll magically appear on DVD over here sometime.