THE ODD ANGRY SHOT (1979)
When The Odd Angry Shot was released in 1979, it came in
for a good deal of misdirected critical flak because it wasn't a
different kind of film about Vietnam. It was chided for not
mounting a more obvious case against Australia's involvement in
the Vietnam war.
The point that was often missed by reviewers brandishing their
own liberal sensibilities was that The Odd Angry Shot is
less a war film than a study - often played for comedy - of a
group of soldiers coping with boredom and each other.
Its concern is not so much to offer a critique of the Vietnam
war as to examine certain kinds of Australian male humour and
camaraderie in circumstances that increasingly place a great
strain on these qualities. The best of the film is in the way it
eventually finds these qualities inadequate.
A small group of the Special Air Services Regiment, 21 Patrol,
led by the cynical Harry (superbly played by Graham Kennedy) who
is in flight from a broken marriage, is joined by another
Australian, Bung (John Hargreaves) when his own group is
disbanded.
The members of 21 Patrol spend their time playing cards,
drinking beer, nursing their tinea and making jokes about
masturbation and 'queens'.
From time to time, they are sent off on a raiding party; they
take leave in Saigon; they receive the odd disturbing piece of
news from home; and in a final skirmish around a bridge, Bung is
killed and the others exact revenge on the Viet Cong.
The Odd Angry Shot starred a strong male ensemble - also
including Bryan Brown, Graeme Blundell and Ian Gilmour - and
provided a comic, sometimes moving, account of the Australian
experience in the Vietnam war.
TRIVIA NOTE
The films last scene, in which Harry and Bill sit silently in a
bar overlooking Sydney Harbour, shows the Centrepoint Tower
clearly visible on the skyline - Construction did not begin on the
tower until the latter years of the 70's - many years after the
final Australian troops were home from Vietnam.
|
