Gettin’ Square (2003)
This is hands down one of my favorite movies of all time and my absolute favorite Australian movie. Staring Sam Worthington (Avatar), David Wenham (Lord of the Rings series, 300), and Timothy Spall (Harry Potter series) in a redemption story of some former criminals who are trying to live an honest life. The film is beautifully shot and well written, it has a few clichés of the genre, but it doesn’t beat you over the head and presume you’re stupid by giving you too much expository dialogue. There is a good amount of action but, the comedy and the heartwarming feel I got from the comradery between the characters. The entire cast felt very natural in their rolls.
We open with four guys pulling off a robbery with one of them dying who we soon find out is Johnny Spitieri (David Wenham). Shortly after it cuts to a prison scene and we find out its 6 months later. Normally I’m not a fan of starting with the ending and then the rest of the film is about how it got there, I’ve seen it done poorly too many times. This is one of the big exceptions for me because I really enjoy how it plays out once our story finally catches up to the robbery and we find out what happens after. The prison scene introduces us to the four members of the crew that would go on to commit the robbery at their parole hearings. The first one up is Dennis Obst (Gary Waddell), his tactic with the parole board is to just yell at them about how he deserves to be let out and that he has been good. The second guy is Lenny Morrison (John Brumpton), he is in jail for robbing a bank and locking the tellers in the vault. While in prison he took a violent offender’s course and when asked what he’s learned, he responds “Well you just gotta be more professional about everything you do these days, haven’t ya? Things like getting to the crime scene early. Bein’ polite and courteous with your victims. I mean, if you can’t be professional about what you’re doing, then you dead set shouldn’t be doing armed robberies!”. Our third parolee is the ever so loveable, Mr. John Francis “Spit” Spitieri (David Wenham). His strategy is to explain to the parole board that the prison system is too easy, just a revolving door, and that they should be harder on people. Not the brightest thing to say to the people who are going to decide if you should be let out of prison, “If you can’t do the time, then don’t do the crime”. That brings us to Barry “Whatsy” Wirth (Sam Worthington), our hero if you will, who has served 8 years of a 12-year sentence for manslaughter which he says he did not commit but also will not rat on the person that did. He also claims he never made any confession, it was just a lie from a dirty cop named DeViers. While Johnny gets released right away it takes a few more attempts for the others, and Barry is only released because his mother had passed, and someone must take care of his younger brother. We finally meet Darren “Dabba” Barrington (Timothy Spall), a retired bank robber just trying to get square, and his bodyguard “Chopper”, a bit of a dimwit but a nice guy while they are out for a walk talking about Darren’s “Slim Shapers” diet.
With Johnny out of prison and no one to look out for him he winds up back on drugs and tangled up in a drug deal with a shady gangster named Chicka Martin, who is going to give him a kilo of heroin for $20,00 on loan so Johnny can flip it for $30,000. His plan is to go to a rehab facility in Israel. Barry refuses to take any help from Chicka, whom is responsible for him being in jail to begin with and struggles to find legitimate kitchen work (he became a Chef while in prison) so he takes a job at a gas station that just happens to get robbed by Johnny. Johnny feels bad for getting Barry fired from his job, so he sets him up with a former gangster with a struggling restaurant that he used to run money for named Darren “Dabba” Barrington. Darren takes a liking to Barry right away because Barry is a great Chef and he can make some tasty dishes for his diet. Darren doesn’t care about Barry’s criminal past as long as he stays clean and does his job (presumably also because he has his own criminal past as well).
Darren is about to make a very large real estate deal that will help him get set up for life legally. Unfortunately, his scumbag accountant, Warren Halliwell, got caught by his wife having sex with his secretary. His wife then phoned the Criminal Investigation Commission and now all the people who have ever been involved with Warren Halliwell are under investigation, this forcing Darren’s money to be forfeited to the government, as well as collapsing his real estate deal in the process. Chicka offers to help Darren but Darren refuses.
Johnny just can’t catch a break and his heroin buyer turns out to be an undercover cop. After being released on bail he is confronted by the CIC who offers their help in exchange for Johnny to testify that he used to run money for Darren to Warren as Johnny is looking at charges for trafficking, breach of parole, money laundering, and possibly perjury. The resulting court trial is absolutely hysterical, one of the greatest courtroom scenes of any movie. Johnny owes Chicka $20,000 that he can’t pay back so Chicka and the crooked cop DeViers force Johnny to find three other people to pull off a robbery to pay off the debt. Johnny has no choice but to go to Barry, who reluctantly decides to help out his friend. Barry winds up going to Darren with a deal to get him his money for his building in exchange for the ownership of The Texas Rose. Darren then goes to the CIC with the information from Barry over DeViers conspiracy to commit armed robbery in exchange for the forfeiture proceedings to be halted. CIC then put a wire on Johnny and got a team to intercept them during the robbery. Barry had a change of plans and changed the location of the robbery to one of Chicka Martin’s places blaming it on DeViers for the wire to pick up. With the evidence from Johnny’s wire and blood on Johnny’s overalls they boys are able to convince the CIC that it was all Chicka and DeViers and make their getaway. After some time has passed Barry sits down with Darren and their family and Darren shows Barry a postcard that had come from Israel, but unfortunately “some imbecile forgot to sign his name.”
One of the greatest redemption stories of all time. Simple in its complexity. Barry Johnny and Darren may not have been the best people in their previous lives, but everyone deserves a second chance in life to do the right thing. If there is only one thing you take away from this movie, it should be that if you work hard and do the right thing you can succeed.
