One star for Aussie comedy A Few Less Men that flogs a dead corpse
REVIEW: New Aussie comedy A Few Less Men is a sequel, of sorts, to A Few Best Men. Talk about flogging a dead corpse.
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A FEW LESS MEN
One star
Director: Mark Lamprell
Starring: Xavier Samuel, Kris Marshall, Kevin Bishop
Rating: MA15+
Running time: 92 minutes
Verdict Dead on arrival
TALK about flogging a dead corpse — three of Dean Craig’s last five films have featured a cadaver in the lead role.
The English screenwriter made a name for himself with Death At A Funeral (2007), a black comedy populated by British eccentrics (including Matthew MacFadyen, Rupert Graves and Craig regular Kris Marshall).
That film was such a success, the Americans remade it three years later with Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence. The critical response was more muted.
A Few Less Men is the latest, Ocker iteration. A decade on, the jokes are really starting to decompose.
Directed by Mark Lamprell (Goddess, My Mother Frank), the film is a sequel, of sorts, to A Few Best Men (2011), Stephan Elliott’s Australian version of The Hangover (also written by Craig.)
Three of the original cast members (Xavier Samuel, Marshall, Kevin Bishop) are back to reprise their respective roles — as the straight man, the skirt-chaser and the buffoon respectively.
The film takes up immediately after its predecessor left off.
David Locking (Samuel) has barely had the chance to exchange vows with his long-suffering Australian fiancé Mia (Laura Brent) at their eventful Blue Mountains garden wedding when his drunken mate Luke (played by Tim Draxl in the original film) falls off the edge of a cliff.
The freak accident severely curtails the newlywed’s honeymoon plans.
Instead of spending quality time with his missus, David feels duty-bound to chaperone Luke’s body back to England.
The violent threats to his personal wellbeing made by Luke’s psychotic, gangster cousin (Ryan Corr) put paid to any lingering hesitation.
When Graham (Bishop) accidentally crashes the private jet Mia’s father has loaned them, in an act of sheer idiocy, the three mates find themselves stranded in the middle of the Australian outback alone with a coffin.
Even more remarkable than the likely lads’ ability to lose their dead mate on multiple occasions are the many and varied uses the local characters they encounter along the way have for his inanimate flesh.
There’s a colourful and strangely almost credible sequence involving fertility rites and a giant golden penis that takes place at a hallucinogenic bush bash.
And a misjudged scene involving Kevin Jacobson as an Outback Norman Bates.
Lynette Curran commits herself completely to her role as a sexually-active Kombi-driving septuagenarian (a performance that is far more confident than the material she has been given.)
And Sacha Horler and Deborah Mailman make welcome cameo appearances as no-nonsense matriarchs of the interior.
But the laughs are few and far between.
While the actors try hard to convince us that they haven’t heard any of these jokes before, sight gags such as the corpses’s permanent erection have been recycled so many times as to be pretty much threadbare.
A Few Best Men barely registered on the pop culture barometer. This undercooked sequel feels pretty much redundant.
A Few Less Men is now showing (opens March 9)
Originally published as One star for Aussie comedy A Few Less Men that flogs a dead corpse
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