Rikky and Pete (1988)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Nadia Tass

Writer:

David Parker (writer)

Release Date:

10 June 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

Follow the lives of Rikky, a talanted geologist, and her brother Pete, an off-the-wall mechanical genius...

Plot Keywords:

Brother Sister Relationship | Singer | Mining | Female Nudity | Revenge

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Stephen Kearney	...	Pete Menzies
Nina Landis	...	Rikky Menzies
Tetchie Agbayani	...	Flossie
Bill Hunter	...	Whitstead
Bruno Lawrence	...	Sonny
Bruce Spence	...	Ben
Lewis Fitz-Gerald	...	Adam
Dorothy Alison	...	Mrs. Menzies
Don Reid	...	Mr. Menzies
Peter Cummins	...	Delahunty
Peter Hehir	...	Desk Sergeant
Ralph Cotterill	...	George Pottinger
Roderick Williams	...	Holy Joe
Denis Lees	...	Fingers
Robert Baxter	...	Truckyard Man (as Rob Baxter)

Runtime:

101 min

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:L | Australia:M | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Argent Street, Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia

Company:

Cascade Films

Soundtrack:

Fingers Crossed

An Entertaining Film I've Watched Several Times

I have especially enjoyed Rikki and Pete for reasons difficult to analyze. Just as a skilled writer can engross and hold an audience with what may appear to be simple prose, this film, too, with its simple and wacky story line maintains an artful and absorbing balance in its dramatic elements: a panoply of "unique", interesting characters, a comical clash of modern suburbia with desert mining town ethos, the clash of inventive slacker minds in the face of both, and a lively rhythm accented by Rikki's C&W barroom singing. What serious social messages it may contain - if any - are handled lightly. After all, nothing's new under the sun - certainly not male chauvinism or sexual abuse in the workplace or generational gaps. This film concentrates on its wacky characters and mining town setting, not on such hackneyed subjects.

A masterpiece it isn't, and I won't deny it succumbs to excess toward the end, but compared to the usual empty-headed commercial stuff hyped in papers and video rental box-backs by critics of dubious loyalty (certainly none to the purchaser or to intellectual integrity) I find it nonetheless a superior piece of entertainment - deserving perhaps a 7 out of 10. Back in the 1980s when I first saw it, I would possibly have rated it higher. Despite the years, I still carry with me visions of the dart-throwing Swede, the mining boss bargaining for "lays" he'll never get, and the wild contraption R & P construct with the help of their friends to automate the mining of their own semi-fraudulent gold claim.