Directed Bruce Beresford
Starring Jack Thompson, Graham Kennedy, Frank Wilson
Rated M
Score 6/6

Boardroom and dressing-room intrigues spill on to the field at the Australian Rules football club.

For those of you who might not know The Club was based on a play of the same name from 1977 written by Australian playwright David Williamson. The play first debuted on 24 May 1977 at the Russell Street Theatre in Melbourne, Australia. The Club was released between other movies directed by Beresford Breaker Morant (1980) and Puberty Blues (1981). Also, to prepare for his role as an Australian Rules football player in this movie, actor John Howard (the actor not the former Australian Prime Minister) trained with both the Newtown Australian Rules football team in Sydney and the Collingwood Football team in Melbourne.

The Club certainly is one of those movies that you should watch to enhance your cinematic education and even though The Club is a ‘sports’ movie and with it has a certain level of predictability this shouldn’t take anything away from The Club’s significance to Australian Cinematic history. It should also be noted that some of the shorts worn by the players in training are at levels of shortness that clearly could have inspired Warwick Capper.

I found that I really enjoyed Graham Kennedy’s performance as the club president Ted Parker. The only other movie that I have reviewed starring Kennedy was The Odd Angry Shot and it is great to see that he has so much depth as an actor because prior to any of this I’ve only every really seen clips of him from shows such as In Melbourne Tonight and The Graham Kennedy Show. There are some brilliantly written scenes most notable being the board meeting after the first game, this particularly scene made me laugh and I really enjoyed Jack Thompson and Frank Wilson’s performances. I also loved how the story was shot that Geoff Hayward (John Howard) tells Jock Riley (Frank Wilson) about his family.