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Romper
Stomper
(1992) |
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The film that got Russell Crowe noticed for the first time is a gritty, violent slice of Neo Nazism down under. The action is set in some blighted part of Melbourne where a bunch of wastrels have drifted together forming a pack of rabid Neo Nazi's under the charismatic if demented leadership of Hando (Russell Crowe).
The pack relieves itself of tedium by brutalizing the minority immigrant community (the "gooks") whenever possible and otherwise its drugs, sex and head-banging hard-core skinhead rock all the way, everyday There is no aim to this existence and the group live from day to day with no ambition tottering on the fringe of a society that largely despises them. The instigator, indeed driving force of the group is Hando who is a simmering, brooding reservoir of confused hatred with a warped and utterly simplistic view about how his desperate situation has come about. He is fighting a war against the invader who he sees as a sea of scummy foreigners. He views the non-white's contaminating his land, though conveniently forgets that his land was in fact the land of the aborigine. Like all good neo Nazi's Hando keeps Mien Kampf by his bedside, sleeps under a massive flag of the swastika and adorns his body with spectacular Nazi insignia. The films strength lies in Crowe's underplayed performance as well as the presentation of the subject matter. The film is about blighted suburbia and Nazism and disaffected youth on one level and also about the hatred and insecurity and paranoia that poverty breeds. It is so much easier to find a weaker victim to use as a scapegoat rather than to attempt something constructive. In this movie suddenly the vengeful Vietnamese community turns the tables on Hando's gang and slowly under stress the group begins to disintegrate. The film contains some unflinching, in your face violence and some shades of Kubrik's Clockwork Orange, especially the imagery in the opening scenes where some skating "gooks" are "done" by the Nazi's. The scene where the gang break into the house of a "faggot, artist" is also reminiscent of Clockwork. What is surprising, almost refreshing about the movie and almost a giveaway that it wasn't made in Hollywood, is that it refuses to pass any sort of judgment on either the Neo Nazi's nor the victims nor on the economic blight that leads to such hatred. It merely presents a slice of life on the streets of Melbourne where disaffection must find a way. Crowe won an Aussie Oscar for his performance and the film has been rush released to cash in on Russell Crowe's ascent to super-stardom after his performance as Maximus in Gladiator. It's more than just cheap cash in though and well worth watching for Crowe's performance alone. It also makes for an interesting comparison with American History X, which promised so much but delivered only uplifting mush. This, at least can't be accused of that.
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