Solo

Review by Clint Morris

Writer/director Morgan O’Neill got to make his film Solo as part of the Project Greenlight series – an initiative to see budding Australian filmmakers given a chance to see through their dreams of transferring their thoughts to celluloid. 

With a reasonably small budget, O’Neill has managed to make (despite the accents, ockerisms, and all local cast) an American hit man movie. Think Luc Besson’s The Professional by way of the Burt Lancaster classic Scorpio, Sylvester Stallone's clunker Assassins, and Brit hit Layer Cake – and you get the picture. 

It’s as ‘been there – done that’ as a Hilton Sister.

The Australian Project Greenlight and the American Project Greenlight are quite different beasts though – for one thing, the winner of the local version has significantly less money to put towards a movie at the end of the day. That, primarily, may be the reason Solo near failed to get any kind of commercial outing here. It just didn’t have the backing – punters included – of those that should’ve been flying its flag.

Yet there’s something else that separates Solo (the Aussie Project Greenlight movie) from the U.S Project Greenlight movies (Feast, The Battle of Shaker Heights, Stolen Summer) and that’s originality. Whilst its Yankie counterparts weren’t that crash hot either, at least their screenplays were a little fresher.

Maybe if it had lived up to its title, and been the only film of it’s type, Solo would have been a singular, rather gripping, experience. Unfortunately, it isn’t alone in its storyline or method of execution, and for that reason – and mainly for that reason – its loaf is a little stale.

Colin Friels (ditching the bottle of hair dye, and essentially letting it ‘all’ hang out) is Jack Barrett, a seasoned assassin that’s decided enough is enough. As expected, his bosses (known only as ‘The Gentlemen') don’t take too kindly to his plans to retire, and try to have Barrett taken out. Eventually, a deal is reached: if he completes one final execution, he walks free. Thing is, the hit is a hard one: a young university student (spunkrat Bonjana Novakovic,) who’s seemingly as wholesome as apple pie, and as innocent as a frail nun.

Obviously born and bred on a staple of Hollywood action movies – good and bad – O’Neill writes what he knows about: tortured anti-heroes, unprincipled gangsters, damsels-in-distress and all to the tune of over-the-top slow-mo action sequences. And like the Hollywood films he’s based his film on, the look and feel of the film has obviously come before script, with the film packing some of the weakest and most unconvincing converse between characters since Wesley Snipes’ latest DVD Premiere.

Granted, O’Neill has injected some very Australian themes into the movie – the seedy underworld of Kings Cross, Fish N’Chips, Classic Aussie automobiles - most notably, the dialogue. In fact, he’s tried a little too much to make it Australian. Sure, we all use ‘mate’ and ‘fella’ and ‘bloke’ from time to time, but not in every sentence like they do here. And because the template is essentially a Hollywood hit man movie, the mesh just doesn’t sit right. It’s like vegemite and jelly, it’s a muddle up that doesn’t work.

Despite the film’s clichés and anachronistic twists (the one at the end is supposed to be a real surprise, but it’s such an old story plot that we see it coming well before) the Australian cast, notably Colin Friels and the adorable Bonjana Novakovic, make it a reasonably enjoyable watch. In addition, and despite the fact that his first effort is a little hollow and no more than a ‘best bits’ from other films in the same genre, O’Neill shows a lot of promise here: a little more time, and a little more money, and he may just come up with something a tad more exciting, and hopefully, fresher.

EXTRAS

The DVD (apparently; we only scored the ‘film only’ copy) includes all 12 episodes of the Project Greenlight Australia series; interviews; B-roll footage and commentary with the writer/director.

Conclusion: Movie 60% Extras: 55%