Grievous
Bodily Harm
(1988)
TGrievous
Bodily Harm is a 1988
noir thriller that
follows two men whose
paths will converge.
Morris (John Waters)
is a school teacher
who is obsessed with
find his apparently
dead wife. He
obsessively watches a
sex tape with wife
Claudine (Joy Bell)
and another couple.
After hitting a kid in
class, he is suspended
and has time to
himself. At an Austen
Tayshus gig (of all
places...), he thinks
he spies Claudine and
decides to find out
where Claudine is.
Turns out he's a
psychopath and will
kill anyone who lies
to him along the way.
Tom (Colin Friels) is
a journalist/writer
who has just taken
$150,000 from a drug
courier before he dies
in a car crash and was
supposed to be for the
courier's daughter. He
is close to crooked
detective Ray Birch
(Bruno Lawrence) and
when Morris kills
Vivian (Caz Lederman)
and dumps her body,
Tom is called in to
cover it. Turns out
there's a lot more to
the story as Vivian's
husband is a chief
surgeon cum attempted
brothel owner and
wants that covered up.
Oh and Claudine is
alive and well. And
fucked if I know how
it ends and it stops
making sense and just
becomes a series of
events that I can't
work out how it got to
the end. There's a
decent thriller here,
but it must make sense
for that to happen. If
anyone wants to help
me work it out, get in
touch...
Just a word on
Grievous Bodily Harm,
the film itself
features no nudity
whatsoever, but the
Gods at Umbrella has
unearthed an editor's
workprint which has a
shitload of sex tape
action which was
cleaned up in the
film. So, you'll see
that the workprint
videos are incomplete
and sketchy but
extremely watchable.
But man the workprint
is weird to watch, it
completely lacks
atmosphere.
Joy
Bell and Caz
Lederman
The
Custodian
1993
The
Custodian is a 1993
corrupt cop thriller
about a detective,
James Quinlan (Anthony
LaPaglia in fine
form), who sees his
life falling apart
with a deadbeat wife
and shitbox apartment
while his partner
Church (Hugo Weaving,
in Red Skull mode) is
living it up. When a
raid of an illegal
casino seems fishy,
Quinlan has had
enough. He accuses
Church of corruption
to his face, which he
denies. Seemingly out
of his depth with a
slew of high up cops
involved, Quinlan
launches an audacious
plan to take down
Church and everyone
else. He decides to
become corrupt to.
But, he will do so to
bring everyone down.
He enlists the help of
a hotshot current
affairs reporter
(Kelly Dingwall, Dodge
from early Home and
Away. Where the hell
did he go?), you know,
when they actually
reported on current
affairs, to get the
word out, with the
help of the only good
internal affairs cop
(Barry Otto, also good
in this film), they'll
bring down the bums,
but it's going to come
at a cost. Excellent
thriller with superb
performances from a
strong cast (also
including Bill Hunter,
Gosia Dobrowolska,
Essie Davis on debut
looking pretty damn
gorgeous and a
pre-Gross Misconduct
Naomi Watts), well
possibly not Hugo
Weaving, he's been
better many times over
though. It's an
ambitious plot, but
gripping and well
directed. Shame the
film has sort of been
lost as it features a
rare Aussie role from
LaPaglia and well and
truly his best.
Christina
Totos
Essie
Davis
Skye Wansey
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