blanche-2
I love Guy Pearce, with or without nose putty, so I picked up The Hard Word from 2002. It also stars Rachel Griffiths of "Six Feet Under" fame, Robert Taylor, Joel Edgerton, and Damien Richardson.Pearce, Richardson, and Edgerton play the Twentyman brothers, Dale, Mal, and Shane. They're experienced armed robbers. They are currently in prison, but when they're released on bail, they have time for one job until they need to return to prison due to a "paperwork" problem.Their attorney, Frank (Robert Taylor) is in love with Dale's wife Carol (Griffiths), and Dale suspects. He wants to run away with her. Frank arranges for them to pull off a multi-million dollar heist in Melbourne, though Dale questions his motives. Frank has some locals to work with them - and Dale sees how this is going to play out. The locals will work with them, all right, then kill them. Frank will then have Carol to himself. The heist portion of this film was definitely the best part, very exciting, moved quickly, with a lot of suspense and cleverness. As for the rest of it, I didn't care for it as I did't like any of the characters, nor do I like pig slaughter, a description of it, and talk of blood sausages. Yuk.As a blond, Griffiths looked terrific and did a good job as Dale's sexy and cool wife.The rest of the acting was good - Pearce, Edgerton, Richardson, and Taylor are all familiar faces. Pearce is a true chameleon and pulled off the low-rent Dale very well, and Taylor was handsome and smooth as their manipulative attorney.Not a favorite. I think men will like it, though.
zenophobe
Glad I ran into part of this movie on TV and enjoyed enough of what I saw to stop and get the entire movie to watch. It's a romp in that some segments are a bit cartoonish and comic in nature and the violence in it isn't anything emotionally jarring or tramautic.Fans of Pierce and Edgerton will probably watch this while going through their catalog of films and I think they won't be displeased although my favorite character was the sausage making good-natured and lovable 3rd brother Mal played by Damien Richardson.For those still skeptical, just give it a watch and see if it doesn't catch you in the first 20 or so minutes.
gridoon
"The Hard Word" is your standard bloodbath-with-a-comic-flavor of the month. The fact that it comes from Australia only proves than Australian filmmakers are good at imitating American filmmakers who are good at imitating other American filmmakers who are good at.... But it has its share of amusing moments, and some appropriately edgy performances; Pearce and Griffiths have real chemistry on screen. I think **1/2 out of 4 is a pretty fair rating for this movie.
goboogie
I gave it a ten to drive up the average (though I don't believe thereare many ten movies out there).This is a cool, smooth movie, slick as Ocean's Eleven but not asglossy. Guy Pearce is merely great and how come that girl isn't sopretty but it works? She looks so much like Juliette Lewis it'suncanny. Not quite in the same league acting wise, but hey, this isAustralia. Where, by the way, the cops must be so stupid cuz thiscrew leaves dead bodies, including cops bodies, all over theirhomes and no one catches up to them. What is the hard word? Love? Or murder? You be the judge.
