The Bank
Directed by Robert Connelly.
Starring Anthony LaPaglia and David Wenham.
This is a good looking Australian movie with an impressive sound track. It is about ‘hating banks’, a kind of modern day Merchant of Venice with revenge approaching from ‘the chaotic-feminine’ aspect. It’s also a modern day David & Goliath story about felling the giant with technological skill. ‘The mathematician’, Jim Doyle (David Wenham) masters Chaos theory and entices Simon O’Reilly (Anthon LaPaglia) ‘the banker’ aboard a ride to glory.
The Bank is dark and challenging. The humour continually highlights these qualities. It’s tale is one of morality, about the elasticity of ethics; of non-conjugal sex and of white-collar crime justified. It approaches the big issues as it juxtaposes Nietzsche’s ‘ubermensch’ with ‘the little man’ and his whining morality. “Stop whining like a woman” says ‘the banker’ when ‘the mathematician’ makes a plea for ‘the loser’. ‘The losers’ in this movie are a couple (Steve Rodgers and Mandy McElhinney) who borrow money from the bank. They ‘trust’ the bank and naïvely do not check the details of their foreign currency loan which has apparently led to the demise of their business.
It is about ‘political correctness’ or at least the lack of it, especially in regard to ‘losers’. In its blackest moment this movie jokes about death, by drowning, of the son of the couple of ‘losers’. The ‘search for the lost boy’ is superb filming. It also resonates powerfully with the Australian experience of ‘the lost boy’.
The acting is good. Jim’s girlfriend, Michelle (Sibylla Budd) is smart, sexy and strong. If Simon is ‘God’ “with a better suit” Jim (David Wenham) is ‘Jesus Christ’ with that “liberal bleeding heart of…” his. “You need grit to make a pearl.” and LaPaglia delivers. The one time that Simon hesitates, while out of character, enables an interesting cinematic experience as Simon responds to Jim’s challenge, “Is that your big swinging dick I can hear shrivelling up?” Yes that strange (to me, at least) bit of imagery is in this film. I recommend it.
Kaliope
