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Freda Freiberg

18 Sepetmber, 1933 — 26 April, 2024

Film Reviews

Film poster for Rikky and Pete

Tricksters, Pranksters and Battlers, Film Review, Australian Jewish News, 24 June 1988

Tricksters, Pranksters and Battlers
FILM
IF SOMEONE had told me 20 years ago that three Australian sequels to three internationally successful home-made movies would be simultaneously screening in the commercial cinemas of New York, London and Sydney in 1988,1 would have laughed in disbelief. It just goes to show that the Australian cinema has come a long way in a short time — at least in terms of visibility.

Like most sequels, these too have had a cool reception from the critics, but the sneers of critics have never kept audiences away from movies based on popular entertainment formulae. 'The Man from Snowy River II' and 'Crocodile Dundee II' have wisely retained the romantically paired stars of their first versions; 'Rikky and Pete' has risked a change in casting, but has wisely retained the inventive array of technical gadgets that made 'Malcolm' so popular. The aim of all three films is to woo a mass market rather than a select arthouse audience. They consequently re-work the ingredients of popular entertainment, providing the audience with adventure and romance, humour, sneering snivelling villains straight out of Victorian melodrama, exotic traveloguish settings, and stunning examples of physical prowess (in horsemanship, marksman ship, knife-throwing and mechanical ability).

More importantly, they invite ordinary people to identify with their heroes and heroines in the battle against the rich, the powerful and the corrupt, and to experience vicariously a victory which they are unable to enjoy in real life.

Of course the three films belong to different genres. 'The Man from Snowy River' is a horse opera; 'Crocodile Dundee' is a string of tall stories; and 'Ricky and Pete' is an off-beat comedy which is more difficult to label. Croc II is more tongue-in-cheek and laconic than the other two, but less laconic than Croc I. If Croc I could be described as an export-action allegory and a take-over fantasy, it was also notable for its relative lack of action (in comparison with Hollywood comic adventure epics like 'Romancing the Stone' and 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. In its second half, Croc II misguidedly tries to match the Americans in an area in which they are masters. Dundee is converted into a trickster hero, who singlehandedly outwits the murderous South American cocaine mafia by superior skill in action and cunning, rather than remaining an expert in the defusion and side-stepping of conflict.

If Dundee II is a trickster hero, Pete is a prankster hero and The Man II is an Aussie battler hero. All three are popular types of the folk hero, common to folk literature and popular mythology.

Altogether, 'Rikky and Pete' takes risks which the other two films are not prepared to do. In the process of departing from safe formulae, it occasionally lapses in pace and sharpness. However, in contradistinction to the other two sequels, it provides the elements of the unpredictable and the quirky.

FREDA FREIBERG