Jack Thompson gives rugged men and official figures a persuasive voice and weight. We value that authority, especially in his Australian work, but it cannot rescue a part written chiefly to explain the plot.
Fi1m perspective
A drink is offered in Wake in Fright (1971), and refusing it becomes a problem. Jack Thompson's Dick has a supporting place in Ted Kotcheff's account of Australian men making company frightening. We were frightened by the pressure behind that hospitality, by the sense that taking part was becoming compulsory. Thompson's ruggedness belongs here, in a film suspicious of the masculine habits that would become central to his casting. The repeated lessons about men do grow predictable, though that scarcely makes the film more comfortable to watch.
The leads in Petersen (1974) and Sunday Too Far Away (1975) followed during the Australian New Wave, when macho and larrikin roles helped establish him and risked limiting him. We like the firmness he brings to a part, but ruggedness is a narrow requirement to keep placing on an actor. As defence lawyer Major J.F. Thomas in Breaker Morant (1980), his authority has a more specific job to do. The performance brought him international notice.
From the 1980s onward, Thompson moved between Australian leads and Hollywood supporting parts, often playing lawyers, officers or mentors. Steven Soderbergh's The Good German (2006) gives him little to work with, despite the striking imitation of old studio films around him. As Congressman Breimer, he gets one of the rooms in which Paul Attanasio's screenplay has men explain the plot, while its central character remains largely passive. We stopped caring which piece of paper mattered, and Thompson's presence could not make us care again. The fault is in the writing, but there is little here to recommend as an encounter with his acting.
His four films with director Bruce Beresford and three with writer David Williamson offer a more promising route into the work than a list of Hollywood appearances. Those recurring collaborations are worth attending to when so many of the familiar parts ask for much the same masculine assurance. We would start with Breaker Morant to see that assurance put to work by a defence lawyer, then try Wake in Fright for considerably less reassuring company. The latter comes with a firm warning about its real animal cruelty.
Biography
Jack Thompson, AM (born 31 August 1940) is an Australian actor. He studied at the University of Queensland before beginning his career in television series such as Spyforce.
He became a leading figure in the Australian New Wave with roles in films including Wake in Fright (1971), Sunday Too Far Away (1975), Breaker Morant (1980) and The Man from Snowy River (1982). Thompson won Best Actor awards at the AFI Awards and Cannes Film Festival for Breaker Morant. He later appeared in international productions such as Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), Australia (2008) and The Good German (2006), in which he played Congressman Breimer.
He received a Living Legend Award at the 2005 Inside Film Awards and was made an honorary member of the Australian Cinematographers Society in 2002.
