A history of Australian rules footy on the big screen
There just aren’t enough films around about our great game. But here Leigh Paatsch tackles them all, from a terrific tale of boardroom bloodletting and player-coach conflict to that awkward one about Joffa.
Leigh Paatsch
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Football and films are rarely seen in each other’s company.
Especially when that football is Australian rules.
Count up the number of feature films themed around our unique game – then throw in the most notable fleeting glimpses that come to mind – and you still won’t need more than two hands’ worth of fingers to arrive at the final total.
So here they are, then. The most notable instances of shining Sherrins shimmering across the silver screen:
VFL GRAND FINAL: SOUTH MELBOURNE VS CARLTON (1909)
WATCH FREE ON YOUTUBE
This is the oldest surviving film of Australian rules football on record, shot on spec by pioneering Sydney filmmaker Charles Spencer.
In case you’re wondering, South Melbourne knocked off Carlton by 2 points in a low-scoring encounter (4.14 to 4.12!) on a blustery Melbourne day.
Swans centre-half-back Billy Thomas did a “Leo Barry”, taking a defining, match-saving mark in the dying moments.
Rediscovered and digitally preserved by the National Film & Sound Archive, who have posted the surviving sequences on YouTube.
THE GREAT MACARTHY (1975)
NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE.
A very wonky adaptation of the Barry Oakley novel A Salute to the Great Macarthy, starring John Jarratt in his first film role.
He plays a knockabout rising star from up-country way – think a young Billy Brownless with a brunette bowl haircut – who is kidnapped and dragged down to the big smoke to play for South Melbourne.
You could get away with that stuff in the 1970s. Though some would say the Swans are still getting away with similar high jinx today.
Not a lot of compelling on-field action to write home about. Jarratt hailed originally from NSW, and it shows.
On the plus side, there is Barry Humphries as a rather peculiar club president, and the great Jack ‘Captain Blood’ Dyer making his screen debut as a character named – wait for it – Jack Diehard.
*Trailer (including intro from Lou Richards) and clips on YouTube.
THE CLUB (1980)
STREAM via Amazon; RENT via Google Play, YouTube Movies.
Legendary Australian playwright David Williamson was on a roll throughout the 1970s, nailing the nation’s quirks and foibles to perfection.
Set amid an Australian Rules’ team that looks for all the world like Collingwood, The Club is a terrific tale of boardroom bloodletting and player-coach conflict that remains as relevant as it ever was.
The featured cast is bang on the money: Jack Thompson as a coach on the way out, John Howard as a star player on the way in, Graham Kennedy as the clueless president, Frank Wilson as the clued-up powerbroker. And on it goes.
Again, matchday action is kept to a bare minimum, but there’s no shortage of old-school sightseeing for true footy buffs. Such as Tommy Hafey playing an assistant coach, Rene Kink and Peter Daicos as background players, and Lou Richards and Bob Davis as themselves.
YEAR OF THE DOGS (1997)
WATCH FREE ON YOUTUBE
One of the great Australian documentaries, and we’re not just talking sports docos.
Director Michael Cordell lucked-in big-time when he started chronicling the 1996 season of the Footscray Football Club (the final year before they became the Western Bulldogs).
There is drama unfolding everywhere, and Cordell’s cameras always seemed to be in the right place at the right times.
The youngest player on the club’s list, Shaun Baxter, contracts cancer. The original coach for 1996, Alan Joyce, is deposed after much backroom wheeling and dealing.
His replacement, Terry Wallace, does his level best to upright a sinking ship, as the club itself tries to stave off moves to force a merger with another club.
AUSTRALIAN RULES (2002)
STREAM via Amazon.
A cracking drama in its own right. As the title suggests, footy plays a major part in proceedings, but not as the be-all and end-all.
The setting is a South Australian fishing village west of Adelaide, where the local junior football team have made the Grand Final for the first time in 38 years.
The road to the flag has not been an easy one, as its racially-integrated line-up is a lightning rod for tensions that have been dividing the locals for a long time.
The on-field action is handled very well, showcasing gritty, grassroots footy in its rawest form. There’s also a bit of biff in the Grand Final that could have a major impact on the result.
A worthy nominee for Best Film at the 2002 AFI Award, where it was knocked off by Rabbit-Proof Fence.
FUNNY PEOPLE (2009)
STREAM via Amazon; RENT via Google Play, YouTube Movies.
Funny People? The American comedy starring Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen?
Yep, that’s the one. Remarkably, this film by prolific writer-director Judd Apatow (Knocked Up, The 40 Year-Old Virgin) carries the most widely-seen sequence of Australian rules football to ever grace the big screen.
Perhaps “grace” is the wrong word. In a very amusing scene, our own Eric Bana forces Sandler and Rogen to sit down and watch a game between St Kilda and Collingwood (the 2nd semi in 2008, if you’re being picky).
Bana’s Australian-born character calls the game and interprets the action for his Yankee friends, using a lot of colourful language in the process.
Definitely worth a look if you’ve never seen it.
JOFFA: THE MOVIE (2010)
RENT exclusive to iTunes
It is a long, long way from Collingwood to Hollywood. Unfortunately, Joffa: The Movie barely makes it past the front gates of Victoria Park before running out of fuel.
With his tatty jacket of gold, albino mullet hairdo and a face made for keeping birds away from crops, the infamous general of the Collingwood cheer squad was never going to be your typical movie star.
Nevertheless, Joffa might have had a better chance of entertaining an audience if the producers had not made a bizarre attempt to turn him into another Kenny.
Weirdly, Joffa: The Movie blends some mildly interesting doco footage of Joffa in real-life action with some awfully amateur mock-doco comedy mucking-about.
If you are not a Collingwood fan, the whole exercise is about as amusing as your team copping a 20-goal flogging by the Pies in a Grand Final.
Even if you are a Collingwood fan, Joffa The Movie is still a losing game as a viewing experience. Kind of like watching your side going down to Carlton in a practice game.
No harm done exactly, but time not very well spent.
BLINDER (2013)
STREAM exclusive to Amazon
This dire drama tracks the fictional exploits of the Torquay Tigers, a real-life footy team on Victoria’s southwest coast. Some tacky, flashbacky business in the film’s first quarter reveals the Tiges’ 2003 premiership squad imploded when several players were implicated in a sex scandal involving a 15-year-old girl.
Due to some very strange scripting – it is very hard to tell if it is blatantly misogynistic or just plain ignorant – Blinder spends a lot of time reminding us this school-uniformed Jezebel ruined the careers of some sure-fire AFL superstars.
Extract this seedy-silly subplot from proceedings, and there’s still a shuffling cavalcade of zombie-like characters to contend with.
All the fellas are knockabout simpletons. The women are docile doormats. Don’t get me started on living legend Jack Thompson’s lifeless performance as the lads’ coach.
Hardcore footy heads who have dared read this far will want to know if there’s any decent on-field action at the very least. The truth lies somewhere between maybe (if your eyesight’s poor, or you’ve had a few) and no (if you’ve seen an Aussie rules game of any standard in the last decade).
THE MERGER (2018)
RENT via Google Play, YouTube Movies.
An Australian-made comedy about an ailing country Aussie rules team coming back from the dead after recruiting refugees to fill an empty team sheet, The Merger is a tough one to rate.
The movie is easy to admire throughout: its heart is clearly and proudly in the right place, and the affection The Merger holds for a refreshingly diverse array of characters is sincere and infectious.
However, when viewed purely as a comedy that must entertain and amuse an audience for 100 minutes straight, The Merger falls short of the mark.
Writer Damien Callinan also stars as Troy, the former footy legend (and present-day town pariah) who coaches his ethnically exotic charges into the good books of the badly prejudiced locals.
While Callinan’s script loads Troy to the hilt with interesting quirks, pastimes and views – he’s a leftie hermit with a mile-wide environmental streak who also makes his own wine – the bloke never seems all that interesting as an actual human being.
The frustratingly inert direction of Mark Grentell – particularly during the all-important on-field football scenes, which will make the most diehard AFL fan wish it was cricket season already – also smothers a lot of the goodwill you may wish to extend the movie’s way.
THE AUSTRALIAN DREAM (2019)
RENT via Google Play, iTunes, YouTube Movies.
This confronting, enlightening and unequivocally moving documentary experience charts the stormy journey of indigenous Australian rules champion Adam Goodes.
While this expertly constructed film does feature plenty of footage of Goodes at the height of his on-field powers, it is his swift downgrading from celebrated to castigated – and how our sporting culture remains ill-equipped to stop this from happening to a person of colour – that truly sears the memory.
For those who think they are already all across the Adam Goodes story and what it represents, the fresh perspective achieved here will come as a distinct and lasting shock.
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