City Loop is the movie that answers the question – Are Australian teenage losers just as annoying and stupid as their American counterparts? And the answer to that question is
you betcha.
The film is about 6 young people who work at a pizza place. Dom (Sullivan Stapleton) is the good looking rebel without a cause. Katie (Haley McElhinney) is the 20something "old woman" of the group still trying to pretend she's a teenager. Stacie (Megan Dorman) is the wild girl whose crazy behavior covers up her inner unhappiness. Misha (Ryan Johnson) is the virgin who almost gets to bang the girl of his high school dreams. Erin (Kellie Jones) is the girl who wants to sleep with her best male friend without realizing he's gay and Bert (Brenden Cowell) is the gay best friend.
City Loop focuses on this group in a single night at the pizza place where they work. It breaks up the story into segments that focus on different people. There's a 20 minute section labeled "Dom's Story", another stretch labeled "Misha's Story", etc. with a bouncy technobeat linking them together. The movie also plays around with linear time, showing us the same events from different character's perspectives.
As a film, it does differ from the typical American teenage loser comedy in that it doesn't have some contrived plot moving the story along, so it's doesn't have that artificial, formulaic feel. It's more naturalistic, like this is just a bunch of stuff that happens one evening. But like many other naturalistic films, that means it's not terribly entertaining. Real life and real people generally aren't that funny or interesting when you only get to observe them in ordinary conditions for less than a half hour in real time.
The only genuinely compelling thing about City Loop is that it again raises the question of why people in foreign movies are so much uglier than in American films. O sure, we get a few walking goblins like Steve Buscemi in U.S films, but by and large the people on the big screen are vastly prettier than in American reality. Even the supporting characters and bit parts are usually played by folks handsome enough to model in the JC Penny catalog. In City Loop, however, only Sullivan Stapleton and maybe Megan Dorman are really that attractive. T he rest of the cast looks more like they should be working as cashiers at small town convenience stores, not acting in motion pictures. That seems fairly common in the rest of the world. Actors in Britain or France or Australia or Japan don't seem to need to be a beautiful as actors in America, and most of the prettiest actors from around the globe seem to eventually find their way to Hollywood. It's like American movies are a black hole of beauty, sucking in the most visually striking folks from around the world.
City Loop is one of those films that really isn't bad in any way, but it's hard to think of why anyone would want to spend any of their time watching it. Unless you're an Australian teenage loser yourself, that is.
The film is about 6 young people who work at a pizza place. Dom (Sullivan Stapleton) is the good looking rebel without a cause. Katie (Haley McElhinney) is the 20something "old woman" of the group still trying to pretend she's a teenager. Stacie (Megan Dorman) is the wild girl whose crazy behavior covers up her inner unhappiness. Misha (Ryan Johnson) is the virgin who almost gets to bang the girl of his high school dreams. Erin (Kellie Jones) is the girl who wants to sleep with her best male friend without realizing he's gay and Bert (Brenden Cowell) is the gay best friend.
City Loop focuses on this group in a single night at the pizza place where they work. It breaks up the story into segments that focus on different people. There's a 20 minute section labeled "Dom's Story", another stretch labeled "Misha's Story", etc. with a bouncy technobeat linking them together. The movie also plays around with linear time, showing us the same events from different character's perspectives.
As a film, it does differ from the typical American teenage loser comedy in that it doesn't have some contrived plot moving the story along, so it's doesn't have that artificial, formulaic feel. It's more naturalistic, like this is just a bunch of stuff that happens one evening. But like many other naturalistic films, that means it's not terribly entertaining. Real life and real people generally aren't that funny or interesting when you only get to observe them in ordinary conditions for less than a half hour in real time.
The only genuinely compelling thing about City Loop is that it again raises the question of why people in foreign movies are so much uglier than in American films. O sure, we get a few walking goblins like Steve Buscemi in U.S films, but by and large the people on the big screen are vastly prettier than in American reality. Even the supporting characters and bit parts are usually played by folks handsome enough to model in the JC Penny catalog. In City Loop, however, only Sullivan Stapleton and maybe Megan Dorman are really that attractive. T he rest of the cast looks more like they should be working as cashiers at small town convenience stores, not acting in motion pictures. That seems fairly common in the rest of the world. Actors in Britain or France or Australia or Japan don't seem to need to be a beautiful as actors in America, and most of the prettiest actors from around the globe seem to eventually find their way to Hollywood. It's like American movies are a black hole of beauty, sucking in the most visually striking folks from around the world.
City Loop is one of those films that really isn't bad in any way, but it's hard to think of why anyone would want to spend any of their time watching it. Unless you're an Australian teenage loser yourself, that is.
