The Merger ★★★
TROY Carrington is the most hated man in Bodgy Creek.
He left to seek fame and furtune as an Australian Rules footballer, only to bring disgrace to his home town by falling through the banner on grand final day and breaking his leg in nine places.
He returned to Bodgy a committed ‘Greenie’ and is blamed for helping close down the local timber mill with resulting loss of jobs.
And now he’s ignoring local footy club The Roosters in its hour of greatest need when it’sfacing financial ruin and the threat of a forced merger with a rival side.
That’s the set-up for the very engaging and consistently homorous 2018 Australian comedy The Merger.
It’s director Mark Gentell’s second attempt at turning Australia’s love of sport into a popular film. In contrast to his 2013 cricket-based debut, Backyard Ashes, his new comedy attracted warm attention and uniformily good reviews.
The Merger is not only funny, it’s also a very good-hearted and well-intentioned film that doesn’t fully resort to cliches in order to generate laughs and sympathy.
This is thanks mainly to an excellent first-time script by comedian Damian Callinan and a strong cast led by the writer himself.
Callinan plays Troy in largely dead pan style; he’s an average country boy with a good heart but hasn’t always had the best of luck in life. This has brought him back to Bodgy Creek to lead a hermit-like existence trying to make a go of his organic, hybrid wine range – avocado reisling anyone?
Local footy legend and long-time Roosters’ president Bull Barlow (John Howard) is struggling to keep his beloved club afloat due to the economic downturn, partly caused by the timber mill’s demise.
Bull’s recently widowed daughter Angie (Perth’s Kate Mulvany) recognises Troy has wider recognition and business nouse that the Club needs and eventually talks him into taking charge, much to the annoyance of Bull and the Rooster’s top player Carpet Burn (Angus McLaren).
Bull quits the presidency in protest when he discovers Troy’s plan is to use gain government bulding grant money by employing new citizens who have settled in the town from other countries.
As well as re-building the club rooms, Troy decides he can fashion a team combining new recruits from Syria, Pakistan and Korea with locals Goober, Wheat Bix, School Shoes, Boof and Blowfly.
Of course you get where this is all going to wind up – with the club turning its fortunes around and people on both sides learing to understand each other and live in harmony.
But like I said, how the film goes about this journey is by keeping reliance on cliched situations and dialogue as minimal as possible and having fun with a warm and appealing collection of characters.
In a fairly lean year for comedy, The Merger is the best one I’ve seen.