Geoffrey Wright makes violence fast, close and difficult to ignore. We find his direction forceful but too willing to let aggression dominate: in Romper Stomper, the performances hold our attention after the writing has stopped rewarding it.
Fi1m perspective
The attacks in Romper Stomper (1992) move with the speed of an action thriller. Cinematographer Ron Hagen and editor Bill Murphy make the violence hard to watch calmly, and harder to dismiss as something happening at a safe distance. We were horrified by the attacks on Vietnamese immigrants, and unsettled by how exciting Wright made them to watch. That unease could have been worth pursuing, but his screenplay keeps returning to aggression instead of examining the people responsible for it. We cannot recommend it, though Wright's ability to disturb is plain.
His early short Lover Boy (1989) established an interest in troubled youth that continued through his feature debut, Romper Stomper, and the car-obsessed young people of Metal Skin (1994). The move to American teen horror with Cherry Falls (2000) was a change of setting and an attempt at more mainstream genre work. With Macbeth (2006), he brought Shakespeare into Melbourne's criminal world while retaining the verse. He later directed episodes of the Romper Stomper television series (2018).
Our reservations about Romper Stomper do not extend to its leading actors. Russell Crowe's Hando and Daniel Pollock's Davey remain compelling even when Wright has given them too little to sustain our interest beyond the next confrontation. The strength of those performances makes the failure of the writing more frustrating, because we keep looking for an understanding of these men that the film does not provide. Staying close to the perpetrators is a defensible choice, but giving their victims so little attention weakens it.
John Clifford White's music adds pressure effectively in the moment, though its cumulative effect is exhausting. Steven Jones-Evans's production design helps establish the gang's surroundings, but Wright allows little time to consider Melbourne beyond its confrontations. These are useful contributions to a film whose problems cannot be put down to lack of craft. Our difficulty is with how much attention Wright gives the attacks, and how little he gives the lives they disrupt. We would like to see him trust a quieter scene to hold us.
Biography
Geoffrey Wright is an Australian film director and screenwriter. He was born in 1959 in Melbourne, Victoria. He graduated from the Swinburne Film and Television School with a Diploma of Arts in Film and Television, and previously worked as a film critic for The Age and Radio 3AW.
Wright made his feature debut as writer and director with the short film Lover Boy (1989). He gained attention with Romper Stomper (1992), which he wrote and directed. His other feature films include Metal Skin (1994), Cherry Falls (1999) and Macbeth (2006), for which he also wrote the adaptation and screenplay. He has also directed episodes of television series, including a 2018 series continuation of Romper Stomper.
