The Finished People (2003)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Audio Commentary-Khoa Do (Director/Producer) Featurette-Making Of-Beyond The Finished Line Biographies-Cast & Crew-Superhero Trading Cards Additional Footage-Montage Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Dark Days, Bowling For Columbine, Roy Holsdotter Live Trailer-Elephant, Owning Mahowny, The Boys, The Corporation
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	79:40
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Khoa Do
Studio Distributor	Post 75 Productions Madman Entertainment	Starring	Rodney Anderson Viet Dang Mylinh Dinh Anh Do Daniela Italiano Steve Kourouche Joe Le Miriam Márquez Shane McDonald Jason McGoldrick Ivan Topic Sarah Vongmany
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	?	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

Bob Hawke, Australian Prime Minister, 1987

    This famous quote, made by our then Prime Minister in the lead up to the 1987 federal election is the text that opens this amazing film. The second quote is from a Cabramatta street kid, who says her life is nothing, people think she is capable of nothing, and that "They think we're finished people."  This quote also provides the title of this film.

    Director Khoa Do uses both those quotes as reference points as he follows the lives of a group of South Western Sydney street kids. It is a film made on almost no budget and with first time actors who themselves have endured a difficult upbringing. Most of the young cast were attending a series of workshops at the Open Family centre in Sydney, which is designed to give them some basic skills such as English and social interaction. Do was asked to go along and enlighten the group on film making techniques and before he knew it they were using their lessons on Fridays to make a film. Things got bigger and bigger and what was initially looking like a five to ten minute short film on street kids became a fully fledged feature running 80 minutes.

    The film is a drama, but includes an almost gritty documentary feel, aided by the obvious first hand experiences of the cast. The film follows three main characters.

    Van (Joe Le) is 20 and has been booted out of home by his mother and step-father. He amuses himself by getting into fights and urinating his name on the pavement. His life is extremely sad and he states quite early on that "If I wanted to be anyone, I wanted to be someone dead. Then I wouldn't have to wake up and go through the hardships of life".

    Des (Rodney Anderson), is just 17 and lives on the streets with his girlfriend Sophie (Mylinh Dinh), who is pregnant. While committed to being around to raise the child, he manages to get himself involved with drug related crime figures and the future does not look good.

    The last character is Tommy (Jason McGoldrick), who is 23 and a drug addict. Despite help from a friend, who lines up several job interviews, Tommy just can't break out of the cycle of drugs and poverty. No one will employ him and he grows increasingly bitter towards authority and those with the power to get him out of his rut.

    The story follows all three characters as they interact with their surroundings and yet at the same time manage to remain completely remote and isolated from the real world. While they don't interact with each other, it is obvious they share a close bond of more than just living in the same location.

    The stark reality of the existence of people with no hope in their lives, crushed by poverty and society's general indifference towards them is the strongest message that this film gives out. Next time you hear on the news just how wonderful our country is and how strong the economy is moving along, spare a thought that not everybody in this wide brown land shares in either that sentiment or the wealth.

Video

    Made on a miniscule budget and shot on digital videotape, this is a fairly dull looking transfer that while not scaling any artistic heights perfectly suits the mood of the film.

    Presented in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1, it is also 16x9 enhanced.

    When things stay still there is a decent level of detail and images are generally sharp and clear. When the camera gets moving quickly, the all-too-obvious videotape origins are betrayed with a fair bit of motion blur. There are no shadow detail problems. Grain is pretty much non existent and there is no low level noise.

    Colours are extremely drab with little vibrancy, just like the story.

    No compression artefacts are present. Video artefacts were also pleasantly absent. This is a very clean transfer overall with little to complain about in terms of grime.

    There are no subtitles which is always a shame.

    This is a dual layered disc with the film on one layer and the extras on another.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

      There are two audio tracks present on this disc. The first is a Dolby Digital 2.0 English soundtrack for the main film together with a Dolby Digital 2.0 English Audio Commentary track.

      The main film soundtrack is a distinctly stereo offering with a definite separation across the front speakers and some really well recorded dialogue.

      There are certainly no problems with the dialogue levels in this transfer, with all spoken lines coming through loud, crisp, and clear. There are no audio sync issues.
   
      The score is very distinctive and adds real atmosphere to the soundtrack.

      There is no surround or subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio

Audio Commentary

    Director Khoa Do speaks passionately and intelligently about his film for the entire duration. He is filled with enthusiasm and praise for his cast and crew and offers much in the way of explanation about certain scenes and artistic choices. Worth a listen.

Featurette-Making Of

    This is an excellent making of that is almost as long as the film itself. It is also as gritty and real as the film itself and truly deserves to be seen just as much as the film. It's almost a companion piece to the film and offers much insight into how this amazing project came into being. Watch the film and then watch this - it is worth it. Runs for a healthy 51:00.

Biographies-Cast & Crew

    Labelled as Super Hero Trading Cards, these are bios of both cast and crew taken from a slightly more tongue in cheek angle. Amusing but also enlightening.

Additional Footage

    5:17 of scenes of various length that didn't make the final cut of the film.

Theatrical Trailer

    This trailer runs for 1:40 and is every bit as touching and thought-provoking as the film itself.

Trailer

    Bonus trailers for other Madman titles, including Dark Days, Bowling For Columbine, Roy Holsdotter Live, Elephant, Owning Mahowny, The Boys, The Corporation.

    This title doesn't appear to have been released in Region 1 as of yet.

    The Finished People may not be the most professional piece of filmmaking you are going to see this year, and the first-time acting looks just like first-time acting most of the time, but the message is undeniable and quite literally knocks your socks off. For all those Australians that still believe our country is among the greatest on earth, you should watch this and realise that everything is not all fine at home and we have a very long way to go before we consider ourselves a compassionate society. Most people tend to turn a blind eye to poverty when they encounter it - hopefully this film makes you sit up and take notice that it exists and is probably a little more prevalent than you thought.

    The video and audio are more than adequate for the job.

    The extras are of good quality, especially the true making of which enlightens and interests.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall