They're a Weird Mob

1966

Action / Adventure / Comedy / Romance

3
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 57% · 1 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 57% · 250 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.4/10 10 1268 1.3K

Plot summary

An Italian sports journalist arrives in Australia but finds no work. The only employment he can find is as a builder's labourer. At first, he cannot comprehend the culture, but eventually he finds mateship and romance.

Director

Michael Powell Photo
Michael Powell

Top cast

Don Philps Photo
Don Philps as Policeman
Jacki Weaver Photo
Jacki Weaver as Girl on Beach
John Meillon Photo
John Meillon as Dennis
Vincent Gil Photo
Vincent Gil as Ship passenger
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
988.13 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
25 fps
1 hr 47 min
Seeds 1
1.79 GB
1904*1072
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
25 fps
1 hr 47 min
Seeds 9

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by frankde-jong 6 / 10

A late and disappointing Powell and Pressburger

I have an eleven DVD collection box of the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger."They're a weird mob" (1966) is one of their last collaborations in time and one of the last DVD's in the box I watched. Some time earlier I saw the rerelease of Michael Powells "Peeping Tom" (1960) in the cinema.All this made watching "They're a weird mob" a real disappointment. Powell and Pressburger could do and had done much better.What makes "They're a weird mob" so disappointing? I think there are a couple of reasons.In the first place the acting is over the top. This is best illustrated by a few scenes featuring someone drunk.Secondly the message is rather unclear. The film is about an Italian who emigrated to Australia and encounters some adjustment problems. The portrayel of these adjustment problems can be divided into three phases.In the first phase the Italian is portrayed as clumsy.In the second phase you ask yourself if the problems are not also due to the strange customs and slang of the Australians. Particularly the frequent use of slang is overdone.In the third phase the (somewhat didactic) message is that, how strange the Australian habits may be, adapting yourself is the best way to do.In the film the message seems rather patronizing to me (from a 2024 perspective) but the book by John O'Grady, on which the film is based, was a big hit in those times. A few years before Michael Powell Gregory Peck attempted to acguire the rights on this book.Apart from the ones described above there are a few other minor defects about the movie I must mention. The happy ending of this movie is predictable and artificial at the same time. The few musical intermezzo's of the movie would be well suited in a real musical but are rather out of place here. It takes a director such as Lars von Trier to integrate musical elements in a non musical movie, as he did in "Dancer in the dark" (2000).
Reviewed by xpat-55192 6 / 10

Six Stars

I give this well-acted movie six stars as I had seen it when it was first released in New Zealand (1966) and I had read the excellent book first. Unfortunately, by comparison to the superb book, the movie seems tissue-thin and ends quickly without any of the genuine Aussie humour of the book - also bought again after a hunt. The screenplay ought to be completely rewritten in 2020 and the movie re-shot. I'd watch it.
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