The Hard Word

Plot synopsis:
Three prisoners are about to be released on bail - DALE (GUY PEARCE), MAL (DAMIEN RICHARDSON) and SHANE (JOEL EDGERTON). Meet the Twentyman brothers. Hard experience and an unspoken bond of family have made them masters of their craft - armed robbery. It's a job and they do it because they're good at it. Their only rule is, no one gets hurt.Keeping the wheels of crime turning is their long-time criminal lawyer, FRANK MALONE (ROBERT TAYLOR), who combines flashy arrogance with a complete disregard for the proper process of the law. Frank's network of contacts enables him to play the brothers and the system to perfection. But success has clearly gone to his head when he starts screwing Dale's wife, CAROL (RACHEL GRIFFITHS). Dazzled by her physical attractiveness, Frank has severely underestimated the brain underneath the blonde. Carol is one of life's greatest operators and she is determined to get what's hers.The brothers are out on bail, only long enough to do one job before they are back behind bars because of a problem with the 'paperwork'. Of course Frank will get them out but there's a catch. They must do a really big job if it is to be their last. Dale's festering suspicion about Frank's motives, and a bout with food poisoning, create an impossible situation leading up to a multi-million dollar heist. The job is to take place in Melbourne. Frank has lined up some local criminals to work with them, to the displeasure of the brothers. Up against the wall and with no way out, the boys proceed with the ambitious robbery, despite some dark misgivings. When it all goes wrong, the brothers discover the full extent of Frank's treachery as they make a desperate escape from the surrounding havoc. Breaking free of Melbourne in a hijacked car, the brothers have plenty of time to think on the long road back to Sydney. Although they have the money, they know Frank will not be far behind. And he isn't. And neither is Carol.

Tags: revenge, comedy, murder, violence, romantic

Review:
'The Hard Word' is an excellent, well-paced Australian movie, straddling the genres of the American noir caper film and the British thick-ear crime drama.
but 'The Hard Word' is definitely a one-off original, and it's very good.The early scenes in this film take place in the Australian prison system.
(In Britain, criminals have a gimmick called 'backslang' which is a simpler version of the same thing.) Several times in 'The Hard Word', the dialogue is brilliantly ambiguous, carrying two meanings at the same go.Three felons are released on the same day: violent Dale, easy-going Malcolm and Pepsi-swilling mother-obsessed Shane.
(The dialogue identifies them as brothers; they don't look remotely alike, but that line explains why they stick together no matter what.) As soon as they get out, our lads participate in an armoured-car robbery that's been set up by their crooked lawyer Frank ...
One long sequence takes place inside a restaurant shaped like a giant cow.An actor named Robert Taylor (doesn't he know that this name's been used before?) is very good as Frank, the brothers' crooked lawyer.
I thought Rhondda Findleton quite sexy as an anger-management counsellor with a semi-Louise Brooks hairbob, but I was annoyed when her character became that prison-movie cliché: the sexy female prison staffer who goes home every night and can get any man she wants on the outside, yet who becomes sexually involved with one of the inmates a few minutes after she meets him!
"The Hard Word" is a gritty, sexy, Australian take on the double-crossing heist movie.
We get to hear Guy Pearce (long-haired and greasy) and Rachel Griffiths (blonde and wet) go native in their accents in an entertainingly original script by first-time director Scott Roberts.
While not the first film to have quirky brothers-in-crime as the comfortable loyalty fulcrum, the familial psychological pathologies make for a nice counterpoint to the friends', foes', and femme fatale's twists and turns.
It's sort of like an Australian version of the film "Confidence," only with better acting and more interesting characters.
Big time Hollywood star Guy Pearce returns to his old stomping grounds in Australia to headline crime thriller The Hard Word.
Also owes something to the direction of Guy Ritchie as several times I felt like I was watching an Australian version of Lock Stock.
Pearce heads a trio of bank robbing brothers stuck in jail, waiting to be released by their employers  high profile members of the police force and their lawyer.
Joining Pearce in a quality Australian cast are Golden Globe winner Rachel Griffiths, Joel Edgerton (The Secret Life of Us), Damien Richardson, Vince Colosimo and Kym Gyngell.
Not like the characters we are served in American movies who drive around in flash vehicles, live in mansions and take great delight in getting involved in car chases with police.
It is this respect for Australia and the determination of the film makers to give The Hard Way some substantive local grit that makes it a successful film, proving that not all Australian movies have to be quirky.
If you loved The Hard Word, then this is certainly the movie for you..
There is a lightness here and what appears to be a refusal to take itself seriously as a genre piece.The main performances are stand-out, especially Guy Pearce and Rachel Griffiths.
The best of these is Kate Atkinson as a ditzy blonde, but the rest are cardboard-cutout caricatures.From an Australian perspective, it was nice to see Paul Sonkilla reprising his police hardman roles from some of my favourite TV series, although he appears to be slightly typecast.I found the cinematography and the sound production quite well done and overall I really enjoyed this regardless of the small flaws, which end up looking more like positive traits - keeping the feel of the movie real and not produced to death, which is a problem I find with so many Hollywood films..
Stellar performances from Guy Pierce (thankfully redeeming himself here after Time Machine) and Joel Edgerton - (best known for playing lovable Will on the TV show Secret Life of Us).It's a smart, funny movie that keeps the action moving along at a satisfyingly snappy pace.
However, the ending is somewhat disjointed and throughout the film you get the feeling that Scott Roberts had lots of good scenes in his head (and they ARE good) that he wanted to put on screen, but that they don't necessarily all work together.Nonetheless it's a highly enjoyable movie in the Chopperesque genre of darkly funny gritty dramas that Australia is beginning to earn a well-deserved reputation for..
Tough and profane, THE HARD WORD is a nasty little gem filmed in Australia during the criminal caper comedy run of production themes from 1999-2003.
Wait until you see how Rachel Griffiths greets Guy Pearce peering at her from behind the glass prison visiting room window in THE HARD WORD....
The Hard Word has a little bit of everything going at once - heist film, love story, comedy, and drama.
It could be (and was) marketed as a thriller about lowlife criminals, double crosses and crime not paying - in other words an obvious Australian-style Tarantino rip-off like the boring and derivative "Two Hands".
However it seems to take its cues more from the kind of slower paced, character-based crime movies that were popular from the 70's.Often movies like this one choose style over substance, and skitter along on simplistic scripts and dumb dialogue.
Not the case here at all-The Hard Word has enough going in both departments to keep you more than interested and entertained, a credit to writer/director Scott Roberts.
What makes the movie special is an amazing, low-key performance from Guy Pearce, whose talent becomes more evident every time he graces the screen.
Co-star Rachel Griffiths plays his sneaky, trashy, two-timing wife; her performance is not quite up to Pearce's, but doesn't do anything to weigh the film down, and most of the other actors are top-notch.
I liked this better than Two Hands - the cast and the jokes put it above.The story basically follows 3 brothers Dale (guy Pearce), Shane (Joel Edgerton) and Mal (Damien Richardson) who are bank robbers.
A peroxide blonde Rachel Griffiths plays Carol, Dale's wife, who has been sleeping with the brothers lawyer Frank (Robert Taylor who one of the agents in The Matrix).
And together they all plan to execute Australia's biggest heist!Joel Edgerton (who was Uncle Owen in a 2 minute Star Wars 2 role) is exceptional, I love how he plays a bit of psycho!
Lots of blood, fair bit of swearing and some general naughtiness makes this film a bloody good time!.
In my time, I have seen many films that have shown the bad side of people's lives, with The Hard Word being no exception.
The tough guys using, aussie language, committing major crimes and misdemeanors and most importantly, they are having  a bloody' good time while they are doing it.
Meet the Twentyman brothers, Dale, Shane and Mal: hard bitten thieves with a self imposed honour code that demands nobody gets hurt.
Frank bullies the brother's into one last heist; a grandiose scheme that will either liberate or kill them, once and for all!I really enjoyed this Australian piece of cinematography.
Like Guy Pearce, she lightens up the screen as only she can, and has been refreshing to the movie industry.
Griffiths has had a good time of late and is about to star in the upcoming movie on the famous Australian bushranger, Ned Kelly, and has been in the recent movie hit, Blow, starring Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruise.Dale's younger brother Shane, is played by Secret Life of Us' star Joel Edgerton.
Look I could on about the cast of this film, with good roles from Robert Taylor, who played the scheming lawyer Frank, comedian Kym Gyngell, Russell Dykstra, Rhondda Findleton and Vince Colosmo.Yet this film also had a wonderful story and showed off the landscape that it had beautifully.
When you are about to watch this film, you could be mistaken for knowing what to except, but let me assure you, that once you have viewed the Hard Word', the characters' and most of their actions will amaze you, to the point that you would never have imagined or forget.
CMRS gives The Hard Word': 5 (Brilliant film).
Half the characters could easily be written out of the film without affecting the film in any negative way (take Rachel Griffiths character; half her involvement in the film seems like an afterthought - something they came up with when the producers realised they had a "real" actress on board).Acting is a highly mixed bag.
When a huge heist opportunity comes their way, revolving around the Melbourne Cup, they see their chance to get out for good with a nice lump sum of cash money.The cast is solid, featuring Guy Pearce (Mike from "Neighbours"), Joel Edgerton and Rachel Griffiths, the storyline is OK, but the story just bugged me.
"The Hard Word", just another B-flick about a bunch of people after a bunch of money, sticks Pearce front and center with a beard and perpetual sneer as a bad/good guy with Griffiths looking equally out of her element as his blond bimbo in a padded bra.
I loved The Hard Word and was wrapped in the totality of the experience that showed none of the shortcomings  as related by others who commented on this film.I thought that the scripting and direction of Scott Roberts was very good: the inevitability of the consequences that unraveled as the script progressed had a Shakespearian inevitability about it  As a viewer I sat watching this all too real story unfold knowing nothing good was going to happen for any player in this strange dance of death but being powerless to change any of the pieces that formed the inescapable conclusion to all that would befall the players.The script worked itself out without being forced through the Hollywood funnel which can do little but transform reality into something palatablefor the mid-American diet: movies as a metaphor for fast food..
The weaknesses were that (1) very occasionally it seemed like a TV movie (especially as similar roles had been played by some characters before on TV)and (2)the section where they escape with a drunk blonde with the loot is unconvincing.
It was better than the Mothman Prophecies, and Kikujuro was so sickly sachharin I was almost spewing in the aisle.I know, we're told to go along, and are encouraged to support the Australian film industry, but with films like The Hard Word coming out, every now and then, I think we shouldn't have a film industry.
My only reason for watching this is because I caught the tail end of it on cable and saw the ending before I saw the re-run of the film starring GUY PEARCE, an actor whom I liked in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL and MEMENTO.
It's no more than an average crime caper movie but watchable enough to pass the time.It's one of those hard to define flicks about a trio of hoodlums (brothers, actually) who are exploited by a crooked lawyer and, in the end, decide to take revenge.
But first time Aussie director Scott Roberts has taken some very far out material with lots of quirky potential and turned it into a fairly interesting heist film that moves swiftly toward a most unlikely ending.
Along the way there are a lot of twists and turns--watch especially for the crucial scene where Pearce decides to take care of the corrupt lawyer all by himself until the unexpected happens.RACHEL GRIFFITHS is effectively cunning as Pearce's blonde and trashy wife, and JOEL EDGERTON has fun with his role as the wildest brother who is most brazen about his prison behavior with a counselor.
Also Guy's nose looks weird throughout the film, like Nicole Kidman's in The Hours, it made me a little bothered.
I was kinda disappointed in this movie,I though that Guy Pearce,that usually does good in movies(Memento,Count of Monte Cristo,Time Machine)would be able to save this one.but sadly it was to far gone even for him.seems like it was poorly edited or just quickly slapped together..
The Hard Word was hilarious because it was so Australian.
By this i mean that it wasn't polished and fake looking, like a hollywood film, the actors were tough and gritty and the casting focused more on talent than on good looks.
Guy Pearce and Joel Edgerton gave great performances.
It was nice to see Guy in an australian film again.
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 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.
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.
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..
This film started off so great, although I couldn't figure out if Rachel Griffiths was supposed to look sexy or not.
This film, though it succeeds in digressing from the standard "Heist Movie" formula (worn down to an imperceptible nub of its once original splendor), makes no effort to be what one would term "good".
Did you see, nobody ever does that." Well, nobody (at least not anyone that produces a film for public consumption) has put a gerbil in a blender and filmed it, but I'm not gonna expect people to be impressed if I'm the first.While I am tired of the same movie coming out over and over again under different titles, with different superstars playing the same role, I do think that there are conventions in writing that are necessary for all but the few geniuses who know how to break the rules (and usually, they follow others).
The Australian film, `The Hard Word,' is little more than a wan cross between `The Usual Suspects' and `Oceans 11.'  In it, Guy Pearce, almost unrecognizable beneath a scraggly beard, plays one of four criminals discharged from prison in order to help mastermind a heist at the famed Melbourne Cup horse race.
The real problem with `The Hard Word,' though, is that we've seen it all countless times before, only better..
Good guy Aussie gangsters try one last heist.
What can you say about an Aussie film that's blokey enough to throw what approaches character maturation or maturity onto the editing floor?It's not as if The Hard Word is a hard nosed gangster film like for instance Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
The Hard Word has a much softer touch and its main characters were just aching for some sort of real happiness.
The Hard Word badly needed those female characters.The third brother's wife is as she says in the script `a c**t.' She sports a manly swagger that would do the boys proud.
Often tough guy films can be exciting, Chopper presents itself immediately, but whereas the Eric Bana character in Chopper was violent, sad and funny, the five hard central characters in The Hard Word are unreservedly macho, immature and shallow, including Carol played by Rachel Griffiths.
The Hard Word isn't a tough guy film but it acts like one.
That psychologist could have ended up deliciously surreal.The Hard Word, in spite of strong performances from Guy Pierce, Joel Edgerton, Damien Richardson and Rachel Griffiths is misdirected and badly written.
The Hard Word introduces us to Dale, Shane, and Mal Twentyman, three brothers Down Under and all in the same jail.
He's also got Dale's (Guy Pearce's) wife.
The wife, Carol, played by Six Feet Under's Rachel Griffiths, would be great if she didn't look so much like Laura Dern played by a man in drag:  but she's hard all right.
He and the actors playing his brothers Shane (Joel Edgerton) and Mal (Damien Richardson) are all plainly having a lot of fun, which viewers can't help but share.
And finally, how could Frank come and propose another, bigger job after double-crossing them twice big time?After his successful international choices, notably LA Confidential and Memento, I guess Guy Pearce though he'd enjoy doing something lower keyed back home.
Eventually everyone gets fed up with Frank, and in a truly bizarre final scene, they turn him into a sausage.The underlying flaw in the film is that it fails to explore the characters or situations in a new or interesting way.
I am glad that there were sub-titles available for this Australian heist & chase film, as the accents nearly made it hard to understand the dialog.Guy Pierce & Rachel Griffisth are the stars & they do well.Joel Edgerton, Damien Richardson & Robert Taylor are on hand as well & they too do a fine job,.However, we have seen this tale ( 3 likable Brothers are released from prison---one of their wives is sleeping with their lawyer,) We have seen variations of this too many times to be taken in,..
If you watch The Hard Word expecting yet another heist/caper flick in the vein of The Bank Job, you're going to be frustrated.
And, right in the middle, Rachel Griffiths' character -- a somewhat unwilling and perhaps incompetent femme fatale.There's plenty of action in the film, including a climactic heist, but these events are surprisingly low-key.