Reviews

Some of the reviewers here seem to expect something like Game of Thrones in a children's show, ie something that entertains adults. You have to realise that the audience of this show is infants and toddlers from 6 months to about 4 years. So even five year olds are going to prefer shows more targeted at them.

I feel sympathy for children whose parents expect everything to be educational. Teletubbies is not really supposed to be educational. It is entertainment for littlies, and in that regard it serves its purpose well. The British seem to be very good at shows for young children that are for entertainment purposes only, Americans don't seem to get it.

This rather forgotten 1986 mini series of 270 minutes length approaches the subject matter rather differently to the more recent Underbelly and even Blue Murder. There isn't a huge amount of blood and gore, and even less nudity. It concentrates more on the lead up events and meticulous planning of the event, and its aftermath. In this way it is much more of a drama/thriller. The characters are very well developed, the frustration of the women of the criminals is especially well portrayed.

The robbery itself took place in April, 1976, however by using non-real names, the makers of this series were able to depict events in a contemporary setting. Hence you will see a News of the World (an English paper in Melbourne?) from June 1985, being read by a character in a VK Commodore (1984-5 model).

This show is highly recommended, but rather difficult to find these days.

The opening credit sequences show an armoured van on Gladesville bridge in Sydney (not Sydney Harbour Bridge as an earlier review states), then at White Bay above the Rozelle freight yard with all its huge billboards, then Pyrmont Bridge (now a public walkway) very close to the heart of Sydney. The Cahill Expressway above Circular Quay Railway Station (which signage can clearly be seen) also appears in the opening minutes. However, the scene depicting the robbery of an armoured van by masked villains and the subsequent getaway was certainly shot in Adelaide. It is unclear why this film was made in two different cities 1200km apart.

The basic story of an insider robbery of a counting house is fairly simple but the subplots get quite complex, and as someone indicated earlier it is sometimes hard to know who is double crossing whom. The director Beresford is obviously a student of film and appears to have gone to great lengths to give this film a tough "noir" edge. I think really he has over-compressed things a little too much. It is fairly short at barely 90 minutes and could have been fleshed out more in places. The final reel gets quite out of control, and its very difficult to discern which of the major players survive to the end of the film. To say the least, the film is extremely tough and violent, sort of like an Aussie cop show of the era with huge helpings of gore. I get the feeling from the "making of" that comes on the DVD, that Beresford might have played the final reel rather differently if he were remaking this film.

Many of the lead actors here had achieved fame in Australian television. Ed Devereaux, Tony Bonner, Charles Tingwell, Lucky Grills, Candy Raymond and Frank Wilson were all well known to Australian audiences of the day. Alan Cassell plays a very similar smarmy character to that he later portrayed in The Club (1980). Candy Raymond was a stylish, attractive actress whose main drawback appears to have been a rather small bustline (the actress's own words in the accompanying interviews). It didn't stop her reprising her nude scenes from Dons Party (1976) in this film. Nonetheless, I feel she is underutilised here.

The funeral procession scene shot in central Sydney involving numerous Datsun 120Y's and equally numerous armoured vans (all of them white), shot with a very long lens, presents a striking scene, which may have been a nod to the famous motorcycle funeral procession in Stone (1974), made four years earlier in the very same city.

I believe Money Movers is some sort of slightly flawed but unique piece of art, not really held in high esteem by its director these days, and certainly not perfect, and extremely hard to find, but well worth tracking down.

The choice of actress to play the "perfect 10" is rather interesting and says a lot about this movie's intended audience. Certainly Molly is gorgeous, she's ultra-blonde and more often than not wears white. She is just about the epitome of the American dream woman. She somewhat resembles Ann Margret in Viva Las Vegas, made almost half a century ago, but not quite as tall or leggy, although its hard to be sure. Margret in 1963 in fact showed considerably more than Alice Eve does here. Rarely do you even see her knees, let alone anything more controversial. My feeling is that the nerd isn't really all that nerdy (he just looks the part- real nerds have never had a girlfriend- and his ex herself is quite cute), while the 10 is really a 9 and a half. If she were not quite so blonde, like her best friend, she might rate a 10.

What you've got here is plenty of profanity, premature ejaculation, a girl who says she isn't wearing underwear, in fact just about anything smutty you can think of is talked about, but none of it is seen. This seems to be the way it is in Hollywood these days.

Anyway the movie itself is reasonably entertaining, if lightweight by absolute necessity. Clichés abound (both ex-es seem like they are straight out of a book of clichés), it has a happy ending, and it really is just a piece of Hollywood fluff that will just float away to be forgotten.