Welcome to the unlucky 13th edition of the jareddriskill post modern film history course! Though I’m hardly the superstitious type, but this week I had enough time before class to go to the 7-11 buy a couple bottles of water and a bag of trail mix to enjoy while watching this weeks film. But when I arrived to the class room, there was a sign on the door stating that this week’s class was cancelled due to instructor illness. Now I’ll never know what this week’s film, “Breaker Morant,” was all about.

Yeah, I mean I could just  go to wikipedia and read some plot synopsis and reword it here, but where’s the fun in that? Knowing from the syllabus that the film was from Australia and from the early 80’s… I think, nay, I BELIEVE, that I can mentally come up with a better film than what actually exists. (As evidenced in last week’s post about the indecipherable “The Harder They Come,” which I actually saw.)

In jareddriskill land, “Breaker Morant” stars a pre- Crocodile Dundee Paul Hogan who plays a cop who has to go undercover in the surf community because there is a drug lord who uses surf boards to transport his wares. (Uhm, he uses hollowed out surf boards to transport his drugs, not duct taping bundles of blow to the bottom of them. I mean, let’s not be silly here.)

Anyway it tuns out that Paul Hogan is a shitty surfer and is unable to crack the surfer drug trade. Until he meets a local surfing legend as played by Jocko (Remember him from those annoying Energerizer ads circia 1987?) who teaches Paul Hogan to surf through an extended montage sequence as Men At Work plays in the background.

The night before the big surfing competition the local surfing legend dies and Paul Hogan becomes more determined to win the competiton. Things work out in the end, with the drug ring busted and the death of the local surfing legend avenged.

Oh, did I mention that Paul Hogan’s partner in this film is a talking dog? He provides the comic relief.

next week on the syllabus: Goodfellas!

jareddriskill