AFI Screenings 2016 - A FEW LESS MEN...more humour, more vulgarity....

For the official start of AFI/AACTA screenings,  dubbed a month long 'festival' of Australian cinema and a moment for you to see $100 million or more of your taxes at work, there were speeches thanking many sponsors and then introductions of some of those involved in the evening's entertainment. The stars, three Brits who also appeared in the previous iteration involving these characters titled A Few Best Men  (Stephan Elliott, Australia/GB, 2011), were nowhere to be seen. We had to make do with veteran Lynn Curran and a young  and glamorous female actor whose name doesn't get on the credits at the start of the film but which did appear, listing her playing a character named 'Janet' in the cast list at the end. Am I trying to say that the opening of the AFI screenings, notwithstanding the near full house in V-Max2 at Bondi Junction, was low key well... I guess I am.

That low key continued throughout the movie. On the other hand, I doubt if AFI members are its primary demographic. At least I hope not because the laughter level was modest indeed. There were two sort of droll moments. One involved a sex scene with Lynn Curran and a combi van. The other involved Shane Jacobson in his cameo leading to some cross dressing. The rest, in which the humour relies rather a lot on the employment of the words "fuck", "fucking" and "fucked" for alleged comic effect, passed without any noticeable reactions which suggested the audience found it funny. Maybe I was sitting in the old folks section and any tittering, especially at the very extended dick jokes, didn't reach me

...... or,put it another way, reviving the bare  bones of an earlier comic extravaganza, one which sold quite well around the world as well as taking some local funds, seems less of a success. It is a film which, not to put too fine a point on it, is utterly dreadful.