Metal Skin (Australian Action Film DVD/CD Set)
DVD: Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: B- Film: B-
CD: Sound: B Music: B-
The idea of racecars, excitement and criminality only just
became legitimate again for the first time since Burt Reynolds played that idea
out in the early 1980s by the mid-1990s with silly Hollywood fare like the
Sylvester Stallone’s bomb Driven and those hit Fast/Furious films
that somehow were hits. A new era of
customized cars had hit as well, so should it be any surprise that the only
interesting such film in this cycle is from Australia? Yes, the home of Mad Max has
delivered a better film with Geoffrey Wright’s Metal Skin, a wild 1995
film from the man who helped put Russell Crowe on the map with the
ever-controversial Nazi skinhead drama Romper Stomper.
This time, the story involves a few love triangles, the
kind of custom cars that fall somewhere between 1970s Americana and Mad Max,
voodoo, car chases and fight scenes that are not typical in any way, much like
the film. One young man (Aden Young as
Psycho Joe) is at home with his mentally ill father, but he gets interested in
the girlfriend (Tara Morice) of his best friend (Ben Mendelsohn (Terrence
Mallick’s The New World) as Dazey) while another girl is also interested
in joining in and bringing Satan with her!
This is better than it sounds, and though it does not
always cohere like readerly formula films, that does not make this an art
picture necessarily either. Instead, it
is a raw film that is not pretentious, shows a different side of Australia (and
we have seen more than most, including Subversive’s release of the excellent Blue
Murder reviewed elsewhere on this site) that has shades of Mad Max,
but is something different. The voodoo
never gets supernatural, so this is not a throwback to late 1960s/early 1970s
independent genre filmmaking either, but a slice of life story filtered through
a rougher fantasy world that stays raw and is never really surrealistic. The people are real for the most part, even when
the story subtly shakes suspension of disbelief. Not as ideologically problematic as Romper Stomper, the
original directing and good acting keep Metal Skin involving enough to
catch and it is no wonder it is popular in its native country of release. This DVD should give it a much-deserved wider
audience and a new cinema to consider.
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot in
Super 35mm film by cinematographer Ron Hagen, A.C.S., and though the color is
good, there is some softness due to the format’s inherent limits. This is yet another solid, consistent
transfer by Subversive that is a pleasure to watch. The film was a Dolby Digital theatrical release and the Dolby
Digital 5.1 mix here is decent. John
Clifford White’s score is not bad and there are songs here and there, as
featured on the bonus CD included, whose PCM 16bit/44.1kHz 2.0 Stereo is
slightly fuller than the film sound.
Extras include a poster and three lobby cards inside the
DVD case, the CD and DVD itself offers a featurette about the making of the
film that runs over a half hour, trailers for this and six other Subversive
Cinema DVD releases, new introduction by Wright, commentary by Wright &
friends and Wright’s hour-long film Lover Boy that was the basis for
this film. All in all, it is a very
interesting set about another challenging film from a filmmaker who is also
having commercial success. No matter
what you think about the film, it will leave an impression and show you different
sides of the genre you will not see come out of any other cinema.
- Nicholas Sheffo
