moviereview - The Tender Hook

THE TENDER HOOK

	Sydney, 1920's and the life of an underground figure is thrown into turmoil when his girlfriend falls for a new recruit. It's not only his heart that could get broken.	score 3+	moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable)
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Cast
Hugo Weaving, Rose Byrne, Matt le Nevez, Pia Miranda, Luke Carroll, John Batchelor

Director
Jonathan Ogilvie

Screenwriter
Jonathan Ogilvie

Country
Australia

Rating / Running Time
M / 104 minutes

Australian Release
September 2008

Official Site

During a highly charged opening, an underworld figure (Hugo Weaving) prevents his girlfriend Iris (Rose Byrne) from leaving their car. On a fogbound bridge, they watch his hatchet men prepare to dump a body in the river. The impending flashback tells us two things – we’re about to find out how they got here, and what we think is about to happen probably won’t. Such are the rules of the game.

Jonathan Ogilvie’s assured second feature is set in 1920’s Sydney where Weaving’s McHeath runs a boxing club by day and a nightclub by, well, night. When he signs up new recruit (Matthew le Nevez), he inadvertently releases a snake in his garden. What follows is an absorbing drama of power and politics as Iris disentangles herself from one while entangling with another. ‘They have their exits and their entrances,’ notes McHeath in another throw; working out which is which is where the fun, and the pathos, lies. Watching on are Ronnie and Donnie, henchmen for whom the concepts of Empire and Proletariat engender wry and lively discussion.

The Tender Hook is a finely tuned piece that toys with its audience as much as its characters. Easing between effortlessly dry humour and the vicious underbelly of his story, Ogilvie also plays with period interpretation: a jazz arrangement of a Leonard Cohen song or characters inhabiting colourised archival footage. Eye-catching transitions and a delicious palate only enhance the experience. Yet for all the attractive elements, and many are very attractive indeed, this compelling tale of love and revenge is missing something in its heart. The noir is not quite noir enough, its femme not sufficiently fatal. Distracted by its own cleverness, the film gains a layer of warmth where ice is needed.

Although The Tender Hook isn’t exactly a knock-out, it boxes hard to evoke a time and place not often seen and it does so with a wit and energy seen even less. More than enough reasons to keep audiences peeling back layers right to the very end.

// COLIN FRASER