1% (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: While the president of the Copperhead motorcycle club Knuck (Matt Nable) has been in prison, Paddo (Ryan Corr) has been keeping things in order as best he can. However, when Knuck is released and sees the expansions Paddo has made, he makes it clear that the club is his. As Knuck gets back into the swing of things alongside his wife Hayley (Simone Kessell), Paddo is goaded by his wife Katrina (Abbey Lee) to take the club for himself. No matter who wins this war, there will be blood.

Going from the suave continental in Ladies In Black to the Wildman bikie here is a definitely step outside of the comfort zone for Ryan Corr, but one that proves interesting. He’s at his most reserved and imposing here, and while the script ends up selling him short, there’s a definite sign that he has potential with darker material. Opposite him, Lee is in full Lady Macbeth mode as the conniving partner who goads Paddo into taking action. She works well enough in that mold, but considering how popular this very archetype is, it’s not as if she gives a particularly noteworthy addition to the canon.

 

Josh McConville as Paddo’s brother Skink honestly ends up doing the best out of everyone here, as his meek and rather foolhardy presence not only adds a touch of innocence to the proceedings, but his scenes opposite Corr make for the most emotional parts of this whole production. Nable as Knuck comes in a close second behind him, selling the sheer intimidation of his station and his physical build quite nicely. Kessell is pretty cool, furthering the ‘great woman behind the great man’ themes in the script while absolutely nailing her own brand of authority in how she runs the motorcycle club as a locale. Aaron Pedersen as the leader of a rival gang gets some decent moments in and George Houvardas’ role as a member of the gang feels like a prequel to his role in Chasing Comets... which, as I’ll get into, is weirdly fitting.

Australia has a very definite taste for true crime yarns. As easy as it is to make jokes about how much we haven’t changed since our convict ancestry, such jokes would undersell how hard it is to argue with that idea. From our most popular TV shows like Underbelly, to our most popular films like Mad Max and Animal Kingdom, this is a cliche that has a certain grounding in reality. That fascination extends to bikie gangs, especially since bikies on film has contributed to our cultural patchwork, like with the seminal classic biker tale Stone. Grit, realism and a few dashes of Ocker humour is what makes these kinds of stories stand out and thrive… but only two of those end up appearing here. For director Stephen McCallum’s first theatrical outing, the film itself looks quite crisp and polished. Not to the point where it makes the scenes inside the grungy bikie club look airbrushed into oblivion, but definitely to the point where a touch more grime would have helped. Even the shots inside the club, which look suitably drenched in beer, blood and hooker’s ass sweat, feel like the attempts at realism went too far into sanitation. All the style in the world doesn’t help when it doesn’t seem to be used to the appropriate ends.

And then there’s the script, written by Knuck himself, who among other things is also a former rugby player. To say this gave mild worries of yet another Chasing Comets parade of mistakes would be an understatement, but thankfully, he seems to have at least a basic idea of how to present this story. It bears mild comparisons to U.S. bikie series Sons Of Anarchy, right down to the mild Shakespearean influences (just swap out Hamlet for Macbeth), but it still maintains a sense of Australian cultural identity. The vernacular comes across as appropriately Aussie, and the story it’s in service to carries some decent tensions across gang lines. Hell, the inclusion of Skink ends up reinforcing this, considering his hapless bumbling that pushes the story forward feels reminiscent of Mark Williams, a similarly dim-witted criminal who wound up conquering the Gangland back in the 2000’s… for a time, at least.

While the intergang friction makes for some nice conflict, between Paddo wanting to take the Copperhead gang for himself and his interactions with Sugar to expand their enterprise, it still feels short-changed. Crime stories require a certain degree of detail concerning criminal practices, whether it’s the specific rackets being run or the area of influence a particular gang has or even the rules that keep the gang running smoothly. We get frequent mentions of Copperhead regulations, but only in the sense that they exist, rather than seeing them be enforced in any specific fashion. The conflict between Paddo wanting to bring legitimate money into the organisation, and Knuck steadfastly refusing to get involved with rival gangs, could have created some decent drama… but alas, it doesn’t amount to much. In all honesty, we end up seeing more of Knuck’s homosexual subplot that anything to do with his place in the chain of command.

 

To say nothing of the climactic gang war between Paddo and Knuck, which not only resolves itself far too quickly but barely features any serious firepower to make the preceding film feel like it’s being paid off. We get some marginal commentary on the uber-macho atmosphere within the club itself, from the brawling to the humping to the swilling of spirits, and there's even a bit to do with brotherhood-by-circumstance with Paddo and Knuck and brotherhood-by-blood with Paddo and Skink that adds a marginal amount of theme to the proceedings. But it's still only marginal; there’s not much meat on this script’s bones. There’s plenty on the actors performing it, but physicality only brings so much to the table.

All in all, while at least serviceable as an Aussie crime yarn, it’s definitely of a lower quality than we’re better known for. The acting is decent enough, only really managing to shine in a few remote instances, the production values show some modicum of style but ultimately come across as sterile, and the writing presents some opportunities for more incisive narrative, it ends up defaulting to basic crime drama tropes. Knowing how weak a lot of local product has been this year, I feel I should be somewhat pleased that this film turned out as non-rage-inducing as it does… but that would mean settling for less, and with how amazingly everyone else has been doing over the last 12 months, that simply isn’t good enough.