Director Scott Roberts’s lone contribution to Australian film remains this patchy 2002 crime drama tinged with grim black humour and a colourful assortment of low-lifes. Though boasting a quality cast and much promise on paper, it fails to deliver any fireworks - only a couple of ironic statements about criminal life as filtered through dozens of other, more distinctive cinematic voices. Its focus on characterisation is admirable but it still feels underwritten and the central heist - a potentially scene stealing set-piece - falls victim to both conventional structure and limited means.

Three brothers on remand, the Twentyman’s, have been granted temporary release from Long Bay prison thanks to the wheeling and dealing of their corrupt lawyer Frank (Robert Taylor) whose shady facilitation seems indicative of a world insulated by a mutual tendency towards corruption. The trio’s an instantly recognizable bunch, headed by iron-willed figurehead Dale (Guy Pearce); he’s flanked by the psychologically unstable Shane (Joel Edgerton) who has serious abandoned-mother issues as well as a weakness for Pepsi and blood sausages; and simple youngest brother Mal (Damien Richardson), a pudgy cook in the tradition of their butcher father.

Frank seems to be getting just a little too cosy with Dale’s wife Carol (Rachel Griffiths), a sultry femme fatale in the Barbara Stanwyk mould, provoking suspicion of his true motivations. Does he really have the best interests of the boys at heart? Or is he hatching an alternate plan with Carol as his bait to lure Dale into a false sense of security? After a deal with a pair of dodgy cops is put on hold by the sudden interest of a special crimes unit, the trio’s time inside is frustratingly extended before another scam can be put in place. This one involves a quick stopover in Melbourne on the first Tuesday in November and a post-Melbourne Cup meeting of bookies in a plush city hotel where an unimaginably huge stake will be at their gun-toting mercy.

The motivations of all are clouded by switching alliances, meaning a requisite number of twists lie ahead in the rocky road to fortune and if Roberts has learned anything from genre progenitors, it’s that you always hold over a few of your neatest twisty bits for the final act and maximum impact when the stakes are highest and the body count mounting. In switching between Sydney and Melbourne, the film extracts a picturesque range of fleeting, scenic shots from the urban milieu, but there are obvious clues to an obviously restrictive budget. Keep an eye out for the scarcity of extras in a majority of scenes and the unconvincing and cheap fabrication of some of the sets, especially those in prison.

Roberts is mostly let down, however, by his own less than stellar screenplay which threatens to tip over into absurdity at key junctures, a prime example being Shane’s declaration of love for calming therapist Jane (Rhondda Findleton), brought in to curb his psychotic tendencies. It’s a subplot that ultimately goes nowhere and typical of the misdirection that hinders the film from breaking through the walls of cliché. It’s as though Roberts felt the need to occasionally lighten the tone with random, distracting vignettes but the gritty texture of the film, with its profane jabs and inflexible amorality, is undermined by this almost deliberate inconsistency.

Pearce is a brilliant ever-watchable actor and he’s easily the best thing about The Hard Word; indeed Roberts wisely chooses to regularly frame him in menacing close-up and he’s the one actor capable of generating heat from a single glance, without a word spoken. His drawn, sickly appearance, marked with the sheen of its ghostly pallor, makes Dale all the more compelling, but not the first time in Pearce’s career it makes you wonder how well this guy is eating and if he’s deliberately avoiding beaches in summer!

A young fresh-faced Edgerton seems a little too clean-cut to make the erratic Shane a fully-fledged nut job but a couple of showy moments are reserved for him, especially his enraged reaction to notice of their continuing incarceration when he transforms an interview room into a child’s playground. Richardson feels like a necessary though slightly lazy compromise in rounding out the sibling trio, whilst Griffiths reaps maximum effect from her sexually provocative turn as the slippery moll of dubious morality whose allegiances seem to waver with the tides. That awful platinum blonde hair doesn’t do her any favours however.

One of the film’s best attributes is the wonderful score from David Thrussell which colours many scenes with its grungy acoustic beat, equally capable of skilfully skirting between menace and jaunty, rhythmic thrusts that give some of the more energetic scenes real impetus. The only suspect musical moments are those mirroring Roberts’ misguided efforts to balance out the dark central narrative with momentary bursts of levity.

The Hard Word is a coarse and lively drama, in its crudest moments occasionally funny with an enjoyably visceral jolt sprinkled here and there, but ultimately it’s a fumbled opportunity and pretty disposable stuff. You’d have to say its implausibility hurts its overall impact and a depressing sense of being the work of an imitator; it’s as if Roberts has watched a few too many noirish crime dramas cut from the same cloth and found little or no reason to stray beyond their realm.

Review by David O’Connell

Director: Scott Roberts
Screenplay: Scott Roberts
Cast: Guy Pearce, Rachel Griffithsm Robert Taylor, Joel Edgerton, Damien Richardson, Vince Colosimo, Rhondda Findleton, Kate Atkinson