Movie Review: 'A Few Less Men'
Director: Mark Lamprell
Cast: Xavier Samuel, Kris Marshall, Kevin Bishop, Ryan Corr, Shane Jacobson
Plot: Four English friends are in Sydney for a wedding only for one of them to die after falling off a cliff. The remaining three are left with the task of getting the body back to England. A comedy of errors ensues.
Review: A Few Less Men is the unexpected sequel to Australian comedy film A Few Best Men ...which we haven't seen. We do get a recap via an animated opening titles sequence showing us the group of four flying to Australia and one of them taking a dive off the cliff. The sequel picks right up from here with them recovering the body and engaging in some shenanigans with its unseemly erection - trying to get it down with massaging, beating it with a book, the usual. This sets the tone for the style of comedy we're to expect from here on in.
In order to create some conflict we learn that the deceased has a very angry cousin who threatens to 'fuck' the main character if he is unable to return the body in time for the funeral. They get a private jet to fly across the country but they crash in the middle of Western Australia and have to find their way, corpse in tow, to Perth so they can fly out. On the way they encounter bogans, ravers and psychopaths that get in their way.
How much comedy these encounters generate is hit and miss. There's plenty of good set up at the underground rave but only a small proportion of it gets delivered. Not long after they meet an odd character in a roadhouse, and he's introduced holding a gleaming knife, but he just turns out to be a bit odd. Some skits do work, such as Shane Jacobson as a Norman Bates-esque nutter but after building up the suspense it gets undercut at the last moment by a deus ex machina. The movie itself ends on a flat note with the sense that no-one knew how to finish the script.
In the lead roles are Samuel, Marshall and Bishop and the three do have some decent comedic timing. Their dynamic is the best feature of the movie and they do come across as mismatched friends whose relationship is stretched to a breaking point. Its positive that we still get that bond even having missed the first film
This is a harmless and occasionally fun comedy. It's not going to change the world but it'll raise a laugh.
