The Nugget

This modest Aussie comedy, adapted by director, Bennett from a John Steinbeck novella, The Pearl, is reminiscent of something you'd see on ABC TV at 6.30 pm in bygone years. In fact one of its leads, Eric Bana, used to be in exactly such a show, Something In The Air, a kind of modernized version of the classic 1960s Australian TV series, Bellbird. So we're talking dinki-di Australiana here: a typical regional town (Mudgee), three blue-collar mates (Bana, Stephen Curry and Dave O'Neil), a cockatoo, the world's largest gold nugget and an old bushie narrator (played by 1970s film veteran, Max Cullen)..

The aim here was clearly to deliver a comedy in the manner of The Castle (1997), in which both Curry and Bana had appeared, but despite some amiable moments the jokes are not particularly good and their delivery is even less so. Quite understandably, the critics dumped on it for regurgitating stereotypes and it died a predictably dull death at the box-office. 

 

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