ROMPER STOMPER: AN AUSTRALIAN COMPLETE 6-EPISODE TELEVISION SERIES BY ACORN MEDIA INTERNATIONAL. (2018)
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
'We're in a war. We have to win.'
'First we've gotta purify ourselves.'
'We're going after the enemy, son, the enemy of the nation.'
'We took your Fascist flag, and we'll take your Fascist state!'
'Everyone knows that a moderate Muslim is only a Muslim who hasn't been radicalised yet.'
'Let's make sure these spineless cunt-fuck politicians do the right thing by Australia.'
'A quarter of a century ago, a film about skinhead racists running amok in Australia exploded around the world in an orgy of violence, shocking audiences with its realistic take on neo-Nazi culture and making a star of its young lead, Russell Crowe. Now, with nationalism and racism on the rise around the globe, Romper Stomper is set to return for its sequel, this time as a powerful and daring TV series, with a distinctly modern take.
Generating both critical acclaim and controversy across the globe, Romper Stomper arrives as a compelling six-part series airing on BBC Three. Following its run, it will make its DVD bow on 18 June 2018 courtesy of Acorn Media International.
Original writer and director Geoffrey Wright has created a new world in and around Melbourne, one inhabited by right-wing extremists, anti-fascist revolutionaries and radicals and a group of Muslims caught between them. He has also revived some of the characters from the 1992 feature, played by original cast Dan Wyllie (Love My Way), John Brumpton (The Loved Ones) and Jacqueline McKenzie (The Water Diviner). They are joined by Lachy Hulme (Beaconsfield), Sophie Lowe (The Slap), David Wenham (Top of the Lake), Nicole Chamoun (Last Dance), and rising star Toby Wallace (Boys In The Trees).'
I went into this one blind, as it were, without knowing the first thing about it, even that it was Australian or that it was connected to the Russell Crowe film of the same name, the one that launched his career into the stratosphere. Long before the close of the first episode, I was hooked. From the compulsive theme tune to the realistic way the actors play their parts, it's a highly slick and sophisticated piece of work.
The theme is racism, and the series reminded me of the film IMPERIUM, starring Daniel HARRY POTTER Radcliffe as an FBI agent going undercover amongst a gang of racist American thugs hell-bent on finishing the race war their forefathers started against the black people of America.
The level of racist hatred is much higher in ROMPER STOMPER, but it still has plenty in common with IMPERIUM. Even down to the bit where the racists take the new recruit they're not completely sure of into the deep dark backwoods to test his loyalty, to the point where, if he flunks the test they've set for him, they'll have no qualms about offing him.
ROMPER STOMPER is set in modern-day Melbourne, Australia. Big, burly blonde Blake Farren is the leader of a right-wing extremist group called Patriot Blue. These are determined to kick all the Muslim immigrants out of Australia. Australia is their country, the Patriots argue, and the Muslims with their 'corrupting' influence and their terrorism are not welcome there.
We first see Blake and the Patriots in action at a Muslim Halal Winter Festival in their
locality. Now, after what I've just told you about the Patriots, can't you just imagine how this one is gonna go? That's right, lol, it's a freakin' disaster.
Blake makes an inflammatory speech through a megaphone along the lines of keeping Australia for the Australians and sending the Muslims, who apparently are all terrorists, according to the Patriots, back where they came from. Then his followers produce a whole cooked pig on a spit as a kind of 'f**k you' to their 'enemies,' some 'good old Australian pork' for the sickened Muslims to 'sample.'
Then 'The Anti-Fasc,' the group of far lefties-slash-anarchist university students who despise everything the Patriots stand for, attack the Patriots and Blake is in serious danger of getting hurt in the ensuing skirmish. He's saved from real injury by a young cool skin-headed guy called Kane and his burly mate Stix who suddenly appear out of nowhere.
Blake is so grateful for the young drifters' assistance that he invites them home to drink his valuable old whiskey, get a job driving one of his trucks and join his 'white power' group. Kane and Stix jump at the chance. Before long, Kane has his feet under Blake's table and his no-doubt infinitely serviceable male member inside Zoe, Blake's wife, this latter without Blake's knowledge, of course.
Blake and Zoe are an unlikely couple. Blake is huge and pushing middle age. Zoe looks about twelve and is a tiny little thing by comparison. Apparently, Blake married her after saving her from a life of prostitution and drug addiction and now she's a committed Christian (a religious nut, more like) who genuinely believes that God only intended Australia for the white people.
She's completely committed to Blake's fight to 'clean up Australia.' I believe that ethnic cleansing is the kind of 'cleaning' to which they're referring. They fear, or say that they fear, that one day Australia will be under Sharia Law and the rule of the radical Islamic extremists who are, of course, also terrorists in their minds.
As the 'Muslims cut off peoples' heads for sport,' according to the great expert on Muslim culture, Blake Farren, Zoe backs her racist hubby one hundred percent in this matter.
However, Zoe's not getting the ride in bed any more as Blake's willy has been left as limp as a wet noodle due to the steroids he takes. Enter Kane with his pretty face and hot body, only God help Kane and Zoe both when Blake finds out what's been going on between his drippy blonde wifey and his newest, most dynamic young recruit...
Let's have a quick look at some of the other characters. Cindi is Kane's younger sister, a school-age teen who's incarcerated at a detention centre for juveniles that houses the toughest, most violent girls you can imagine.
The place has huge wire fences and big burly female guards with walkie-talkies. Cindi is desperate to break out of this kip and find brother Kane. But does brother particularly Kane want to be found...?
Gabrielle Jordan is a bit of an enigma. She's a businesswoman with short, disciplined blonde hair, a married lover with whom she's carried on an unsatisfactory affair for several years now and a father who's dying, slowly and painfully, in a nursing home while Gabe looks on coldly. She's also got a son, but I can't say any more about that just now. I'll let you guys find out about him for yourselves...
Laila Tahir is a beautiful young Muslim University student who objects vehemently to the Patriots' tarring of all Muslims with the same brush. She gets invited onto the biggest talk show in Australia, NO QUARTER with the utterly vile sleaze-bag Jago Zoric, to discuss this very subject.
Jago and his friend/other guest Blake Farren, make mincemeat of her on the air. It's not surprising that the two men are mates. Jago has apparently, in the past, called for 'mosques to be destroyed and Muslims to be tagged,' so obviously his loyalties are clearly all with the Patriots. Laila is insulted horribly on social media afterwards and even receives death threats, while the odious Blake refers to Jago's Asian secretary as 'the office gook.' It just boggles the mind, doesn't it?
The 'Anti-Fasc' group or collective, who seem to operate mostly on social media, want to use the bright, articulate and confident Laila as some kind of poster-girl for their movement, but Laila's not sure. I'm not sure about them either, to be honest.
Even though they're stronly opposed to the Patriots and we should be on their side, I don't really trust or like the 'Anti-Fasc' gang. Maybe I suspect their motives, as in, they're University students, right? They're bound to choose a cause to support. So could it just as easily be the whales as the Muslims, animal rights as the immigrants? I just have a 'hinky' feeling about them, that's all.
They annoy me, lol. As University students, they're expected to take up a cause. But will they still give a shit about the Muslim immigrants when they go home to Mummy and Daddy for the holidays or off around the world for a gap year of travel and horizon-broadening? Just how committed are they to their cause? That's what I want to know.
Under Blake's tutelage, Kane sets up 'night patrols' to 'clean up' the streets of Melbourne. This seems to mostly involve them savagely beating up any Muslim guys they can find, guys whom they call names like 'Aladdin' or 'fucking towel-heads, man!' Here's what Kane says about it all:
'We take Melbourne back. We clean the fucking streets up. We're the law. We're the order. There's no-one else. It's just us.' Well, any idiot can swing a sack-a doorknobs, as is proven by the half-assed vigilante group Springshield established by Homer Simpsons in THE SIMPSONS.
Sure, I guess it makes Kane and his mates feel like big men, walking in slow motion to cool music in a big group (there's safety in numbers) and yeah, sure, it looks pretty cool too, but that doesn't make it right, what they're doing.
Oh, and how can we forget the crazy old racist guy who lives in the woods amongst a shedload of swastikas and Nazi memorabilia and an arsenal of weapons? In this case, the nut is called Magoo and he's one of the 'founding fathers' of the Patriots. Big surprise, lol.
There's the Patriots' obligatory visit to Magoo's dilapidated old cabin-in-the-woods to pay their respects and show the young 'uns amongst their number what a real racist looks like. What he looks like, in fact, is the mad old reclusive Nazi being hidden by the priest/Nazi sympathiser in the 'racism' episode of clerical sitcom FATHER TED, but I'm not gonna be the one to tell him that, are you...?
The most upsetting thing about the Patriots is that their racial hatred even extends to the animal kingdom. They're 'going to war' on what they call 'introduced species,' that is to say, animals who have been introduced into the Australia wild from other countries.
I'll say no more about that but be warned. There are some very distressing scenes here connected to this storyline. Animal-lovers will have their stomachs properly turned. Cheer yourselves up by listening to the rousing ditty about 'the Fourth Reich fighting men' on repeat, it's good for a few laughs...
ROMPER STOMPER is a tough series to watch but it's brilliantly executed and, in this racist day and age, it's more highly relevant than it could probably ever be. I'd advise anyone who's got the stomach for its hard-hitting themes to watch it. It's more relevant probably than we even realise...
Cult film ‘Romper Stomper’ gets its sequel in the powerful new BBC THREE series on DVD 18 June from ACORN MEDIA INTERNATIONAL.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger, poet and book-and-movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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