Romper Stomper ***1/2 of **** grade is A-
Romper Stomper, like Trainspotting, is compared to the great A Clockwork Orange, plots of both resemble it, yet both lack the scathing satire of Orange electing instead to tell another slice of life. This film portrays the skinheads of Australia, they party, they fight, and they flee. Not all of the fighting is against other races, the selective hatred is selecting a broader group. What you end up withis one of the most interesting and compelling foreign films of recent years.
Russell Crowe stars as the evil, leader of the skinhead group we follow. They beat two Orientals whom had the badluck of crossing the path of the men. The point is made early: Women or Children they're still not as pure as I. Watching the scenes of beating in the beginning and around twenty minutes in are quite tough to stomach. They are violent, fast and uncompromising.
Those three words describe not only that scene but infact the entire film which contains material that will affend most. This film reminded me of the great Henry: Portrit of a Serial Killer in the way both show hainous villians and don't stoop to cliches or sentiment. The action is unbiased, not trying to steer you but show you. Pay close attention to the scenes of fast paced violence and you will notice teens who have passed the degree of hatte that most humans never achieve.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews