The Big Steal
Nadia Tass | Australia | 1990
| Director: Nadia Tass Producers: David Parker, Nadia Tass Screenplay: David Parker Cinematography: David Parker Editor: Peter Carrodus Music: Chris Gough, Philip Judd | Ben Mendelsohn (Danny Clark) Claudia Karvan (Joanna Johnson) Marshall Napier (Desmond Clark) Damon Herriman (Mark Jorgensen) Angelo D’Angelo (Vangeli Petrakis) Steve Bisley (Gordon Farkas) |
Rating: PG coarse language Runtime: 112 minutes
A fun Australian teen comedy featuring the first lead performance of Ben Mendelsohn? Sign us up!
In The Big Steal, self-conscious teenager Danny Clark (Mendelsohn) is in desperate need of a Jaguar after over-promising on the quality of his vehicle to Joanna (Claudia Karvan), the girl he wants to take on a date. Sold a lemon by slimy secondhand car salesman, Gordon Farkas (Steve Bisley), Danny starts plotting on how to get even.
We love to cover a range of genres at Wellington Film Society and we can’t wait to have a laugh with The Big Steal. Mendelsohn is renowned for playing scary characters, such as in Animal Kingdom and Killing Them Softly, so seeing him in a comedy will be a treat.
“The Big Steal would be worth seeing for Bisley’s gloriously slimy costuming alone if it also wasn’t Australia’s answer to a John Hughes-esque teen comedy, complete with the first lead performance in a film from the prodigiously talented Mendelsohn”
—Melbourne International Film Festival.