THE CASTLE
A Film Review by Brian Takeshita
Rating: *** out of ****
Let's say you live at the end of an airport runway. Large jetliners continuously pass over your house, rattling your windows and allowing few moments of peace. Let's say the ground beneath your feet is also contaminated with toxic substances, and high voltage power lines run across steel towers only yards from your home. Now let's say an airport conglomerate wants to buy your property in order to lengthen the runway, and offers you more than it's worth. Wouldn't you jump in the air and have your bags packed before you landed? Of course you would.
But what if this bit of land was your idea of paradise, and the house your castle? That's what they are to Darryl Kerrigan (Michael Caton), and although he's happy that a multi-national corporation would like to buy his home, sorry, it's not for sale. Unfortunately, the corporation wields quite a bit of influence over the Australian government, which serves Darryl and his family with what amounts to an eviction notice. Not about to take this lying down, Darryl enlists the help of his inept attorney friend Dennis Denuto (Tiriel Mora) and makes a determined, albeit pathetic, attempt to fight back.
THE CASTLE, an Australian comedy by Rob Sitch, is perhaps one of the simplest movies I've seen in recent memory, yet also one of the funniest. In fact, it is this film's reliance on simplicity which makes it so successful. The good guys and the bad guys are clear, the humor is straightforward, and the storyline is as uncomplicated as it gets. It's the perfect setup for a relaxing, hilarious good time, and as much as I hate to admit it, I liked the fact that I didn't have to think all that much while watching this film. I just sat back and enjoyed myself.
The situation is one we've seen before: Regular Joe fights back against the government, or big business, or whatever. What makes this film different is its characters. Darryl thinks he's got the best life in the world - he tells his family that living next to power lines is a constant reminder of the success of mankind, he asks who would ever want to go out and eat in a fancy restaurant when he's got the meat loaf feast prepared by his wife Sal (Anne Tenny), and he swells with pride when his son Dale (Stephen Curry) digs a hole in the yard. Steve Kerrigan (Anthony Simcoe) constantly combs the buy and sell ads looking for "investments" like jousting sticks and overhead projectors, while Wayne Kerrigan is in jail, as a result of Dennis Denuto's incompetent courtroom maneuvers. The great thing about the Kerrigans is that they aren't so stupid that they get annoying. They're just a group of simpletons whose naive nature is perfectly harmless and even endearing. We look upon them with a little bit of pity, but a whole lot of affection.
Screenwriters Sitch, Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, and Jane Kennedy pit this lovable bunch of unlikely crusaders against a stoic court system and a condescending business conglomerate, further polarizing the extremes and deepening our feelings for the Kerrigans. Sympathy for their situation, the laughter they bring us, and the family's wonderful characterization, simple as it may be, leaves us with a degree of emotional investment that causes us to actually care about what happens to them. I suppose one might wonder how deep characterization can go when your characters are as inane as the Kerrigans, but trust me, it works.
I particularly noted that the writers did not have to use slapstick in order to get laughs. Don't get me wrong - slapstick, when executed well, can be genius. It's just that too often, a film will resort to it's use as a shortcut to amusing the audience, not always successfully. Instead, the jokes in THE CASTLE are all hinged upon the dialog uttered by these people who have no idea that they are totally skewed to the rest of the world. When they are by themselves, the are funny, and when they are with normal people, they are hilarious.
One of the few problems I saw with this film was a detour taken about midway though. The Kerrigans go out to a vacation spot for seemingly no reason other than to pack in a few more jokes and increase the film's running time. Luckily, it's a funny little detour that, while slightly distracting from the film's main drive, is still quite enjoyable.
With all the levity abound in THE CASTLE, the film still manages to take on a pretty heavy concept, that of the innate right of a citizen to keep his property, an issue which has been bandied about in courts across the civilized world with differing outcomes. I'm not certain the courtroom monologue near the end of the film would actually hold up in real life, but it brings to the forefront the essence of the constitution (of Australia) and certainly sounds impressive at any rate. And, for that matter, it's more than I would have expected out of a light hearted film like this.
Review posted June 15, 1999
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