Crackerjack

The Cityside Bowling Club is having financial difficulties and staunch members like Stan, Bill Hunter, Len, Frank Wilson and Eileen, Monica Maughan are resisting the rather forceful overtures of Bernie, John Clarke to redevelop the club and install profitable poker machines. The only answer they can see is to enter a tournament for the prize money. But finding a team amongst the club`s aging membership is difficult. They cull the membership list and discover Jack Simpson has been a member for years but has never turned up. Jack, Mick Molloy, is only a member for the inner city parking- he`s joined three times under three different names to make some money on the side. And now he`s being called on to actually play the game and do time behind the bar......This is such a charming film, if not outright hilarious at moments And it`s largely due to the perfectly pitched performances of some of this country`s veteran actors like Hunter, Wilson and Maughan and some familiar ones by Molloy and the ever ascerbic Judith Lucy. The clever screenplay was developed by Molloy and his brother Richard and it`s careful not to laugh at these elderly characters but to embrace them with great fondness. The director Paul Moloney who up till now has had a long and distinguished career in television has allowed the humour to emerge without any flourishes, although managing to get a visual laugh out of lawn bowls is no mean feat. The aptly titled Crackerjack is a winner for me. Comments From David StrattonA small-scale Aussie comedy, which seems mainly pitched at older audiences, despite the presence of Mick Molloy and Judith Lucy (who can`t do much with her marginal character). John Clarke steals the show as the devious bad guy, and there are some delightful performances from a bunch of older actors. The plot is slight and quite predictable.