Tomorrow, When Things Go Boom

by Carol van Opstal 24 August 2010 01:19 Filmink Discusses

Our first big Australian action movie since Mad Max.

 

A glance back at Australia's cinematic output over the last 20 years reveals that we've focused mostly on two kinds of films: Angsty Dramas and Quirky Comedies. Somersault? Angsty Drama. The Wog Boy? Quirky Comedy. The Proposition? Angsty Drama with horses. And so on.

As for action movies, well, they've been rare. Like thylacine rare. Sure, we've been used as a backlot for various Hollywood shoot-'em-ups like Sniper (1993) and Mission: Impossible II (2000), but they don't count. Tom Cruise may have once been chummy with Ray Martin, but he's no Aussie. We don't jump on couches unless we've downed about sixteen VBs.

This makes Tomorrow, When the War Began a fresh breath of gunpowder: our first big Australian action movie since Mel Gibson trashed lots of metal in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (a fourth Max entry is in development, but Gibson's not involved. These days he's too busy trashing his own career).

Adapted by Pirates of the Caribbean scribe Stuart Beattie from John Marsden's best-selling novel, Tomorrow sounds like a Vegemite retread of John Milius's Red Dawn (1984): when hostile forces invade their borders, a group of rural teens turn guerilla, hole up in the mountains and fight back.

But while Red Dawn was a snapshot of Reagan-era cold-war paranoia, Tomorrow promises to focus more on emotions than politics. Think Puberty Blues with assault rifles. The film's premise poses interesting questions: how will these kids manage without parental guidance? How will they cope with taking human lives? And most importantly, how on earth will they survive without Facebook?

Tomorrow is a slick, post-9/11 throwback to the wild and woolly action movies we used to make, "Ozploitation" classics like The Man from Hong Kong (1975) and the aptly titled Deathcheaters (1976), which both boast hair-raising stunts by Grant Page and gonzo action scenes that leave one wondering: "How the hell did they get a permit for that?"

These films were the opening salvos in what became the Golden Age of Australian action movies, a period from roughly 1975 to 1988 when we pumped out blood-and-thunder classics such as Mad Max, The Chain Reaction (1980), Race for the Yankee Zephyr (1981), Mad Max 2 (1981), the completely bonkers Turkey Shoot (1982), feminist actioner Fair Game (1986) and on the small screen, John Power's superb mini-series Alice to Nowhere, which, criminally, still isn't available on DVD.

Then, as the Recession We Had To Have loomed, government film funding dwindled and Australian action movies faded to black. Today's film snobs may sniff that films like Deathcheaters are just thinly plotted excuses for endless action set-pieces, but that's like saying The Red Shoes (1948) is just an excuse for endless dance numbers. Compared to the safe, PG-13, CGI-stuffed confections of 2010, films like Mad Max and its disreputable ilk are masterpieces of mayhem, blitzkriegs of Eisensteinian editing and kinetic cinematography, and it's a shame there's been nothing like them since.

Perhaps our film financiers should observe what's happening on the small screen. Action TV is rating very well, which proves that local audiences want more than just Angsty Dramas and Quirky Comedies. The likes of Sea Patrol, Rush and Rescue Special Ops offer more weekly standoffs, shootouts and 'splosions than Arnold Schwarzenegger's pre-Governator oeuvre. Overseas tourists watching these high-octane serials on their hotel TVs must think Australia is the world capital of daring cliff rescues, hijackings and people running away from fireballs in slow-motion. So much for shrimps on the barbie.

But Tomorrow, When the War Began is no breathless cop drama. Its protagonists aren't Kevlar-clad members of some Special Emergency Rescue Tactical Ops Squad whatsit. They're just everyday teens, frightened, resourceful and hormonal. Not only must they deal with people shooting at them but also the standard burdens of adolescence: crushes, peer pressure and acne. If only Clearasil came in khaki.

Race for the Yankee Zephyr producer Antony Ginnane hopes Tomorrow will be a hypodermic jab of adrenaline to the heart of domestic action cinema.

"I absolutely hope it will be a big success and further help reconnect Australian cinema-going audiences with Australian films and re-exhilarate Australian exhibitors," Ginnane says. He believes that if Tomorrow succeeds, long-closed doors could creak open for budding action maestros.

"I think Screen Australia today has a relatively open mind to genre, considerably more so than the early Film Finance Corporation," Ginnane says. "There are still sceptics who say 'Hollywood can do it better, don't bother to try' et cetera. But France can do it with Taken. Russia can do it with Daywatch, so we clearly can. We speak English and now we have the stars. So I'm optimistic."

How Tomorrow will be received by punters in Nice and Novosibirsk is anyone's guess, but it should play well here because of its built-in audience: thousands of avid John Marsden readers. For those unfamiliar with the novel, the novelty of seeing an action movie with gum trees should deliver healthy ticket sales. A dark thriller about teens with guns probably won't dethrone The Castle as our all-time feelgood classic any time soon, but hey, at least it's got to be preferable to another over-hyped Hollywood melodrama about teens with fangs.