Catch a fading star

Rats and Cats (M) 3 stars Limited release HAVE Australian cinemagoers abandoned Australian films and, if so, why?

Rats and Cats (M) 3 stars Limited release HAVE Australian cinemagoers abandoned Australian films and, if so, why?

Why didn't generally well-reviewed films such as life-affirming The Black Balloon and the honest, funny, unsettling Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger find the audiences they deserved?

At the same time that these mainstream, government-funded films are faltering at the box office there's a surprisingly large number of independently made, no-budget films being produced very professionally: the excellent The Jammed is the most prominent of a growing list that has included the recent World War II-era drama Broken Sun, and now the distinctly offbeat Rats and Cats, a caustic, discursive examination of the cult of celebrity.

One of the film's protagonists, former television and movie star Darren McWarren (Jason Gann), who has abandoned the fast lane to live the life of a local celebrity in the Victorian coastal town of Gladdington, has his own views on why Australians don't support local films: "'Cos they're shit." He's a harsh critic.

He's also delusional. Gann, who wrote the screenplay with his co-star, Adam Zwar, makes him simultaneously amusing and irritating. Zwar plays Ben Baxter, a Melbourne journalist who is assigned to write a where-are-they-now profile on the former star.

Darren had been big; at 15 he had starred in a sitcom called And Another Thing and won the best newcomer Logie. He'd also been in two feature films, Starvin', playing the captain of a crashed airliner, and Father Roger, as a priest who counsels juvenile offenders.

Sexual relationships with his 15-year-old co-star and with the producer's wife apparently led to his early retirement. But he has become a celebrity in Gladdington, complete with groupies -- Tanya (Alexis Porter) and Mia (Jess Beazley) -- and his own band, Black Diamond. He also chauffeurs the local masseuse, Cindy (Anya Beyersdorf), operates some shonky lucky dip machines, and bullies his loyal employee, Bruce (Paul Denny), and other members of his band.

Ben discovers all this when he arrives in Gladdington and is permitted to follow Darren around for a few days.

Gann and Zwar are superb, Gann as the self-centred star whose brain seems to have beenaddled by substance abuse and Zwar as the bumbling Everyman who finds himself in an environment comical and disturbing.

There's a great deal to enjoy here, not least the crisp cinematography by Anna Howard and the assured ensemble playing by everyone in the cast. The main problem with this ambitious and generally likable film is (and this will come as no surprise) the screenplay. Gann and Zwar write excellent dialogue for themselves and others, but having established Darren and Ben they seem uncertain what to do with them.

There are long scenes in which nothing much happens -- including an endless diving sequence that shows off underwater photography but achieves little else -- and abrupt changes of mood, from drily funny to bleakly grim. This wouldn't matter if, overall, there was a sense of the writers having a clear idea of where this journey is heading.

Rats and Cats is an excellent example of independent Australian film and deserves to be seen; with a little more care in the development of the story it might have been outstanding.