Stone Bros.

Overview

Touted as the first indigenous comedy film, Stone Bros. is an Aboriginal Australian road movie, replete with colourful characters and crazy situations. Writer/director Richard J. Frankland sticks cousins Eddie (Luke Carroll) and Charlie (Leon Burchill) in a busted up old Ford and sends them on a coming-of-age journey from Perth some 500-odd kilometres to their home in Kalgoorlie.

In keeping with generic conventions, Eddie and Charlie’s trip is punctuated by increasingly zany occurrences. From hitting a kangaroo, to picking up a mysterious muso (Valentino del Toro), their transvestite cousin (David Page) and gatecrashing a rather explosive wedding, the pair continue to tirelessly track down a sacred stone entrusted to Eddie by their uncle (David Kennedy), which has been given to some hot geologist by another foolish cousin (Heath Bergersen). Meanwhile, Charlie suffers the consequences of doing a runner on his magically gifted girlfriend, all of which culminates in a shamelessly B-movie chase sequence featuring a demonically possessed dog.

There are a lot of laughs to be had with Stone Bros. Some are certainly derived from the impressive bag of 187 joints the boys work their way through, but mostly the fun spills over from the great banter between Eddie and Charlie. Culture, colour and creed are all served up as fair game, while ‘The Apology’ is lampooned in a particularly hilarious dream sequence. And in a parody reminiscent of Warwick Thornton’s short Mimi, white-fella Peter Phelps brings down the big house as a prison-guard desperate to find his dreaming.

While some of the comedy is a bit brash and silly, Stone Bros. definitely succeeds in using humour to communicate some home truths. The importance of culture and family are well conveyed without any saccharine schlock. And as for the politics, who isn’t going to have a giggle at John Howard’s expense when a gigantic photo of our former PM squishes a museum guard’s cat?

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Stone Bros. Trailer from Australian Film Syndicate on Vimeo.