Charlie & Boots (2009)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy Drama	Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary Featurette-"60 Minutes" Story Featurette-Making Of-Webisodes Featurette-Showtime Channel
Rating
Year Of Production	2009
Running Time	97:09 (Case: 101)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (64:55)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Dean Murphy
Studio Distributor	Transmission Films Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Stewart Faichney Dean Murphy Paul Hogan Roy Billing Morgan Griffin Shane Jacobson Val Lehman Reg Evans Alec Wilson Danny Baldwin
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Dale Cornelius

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, The funniest joke in the whole movie!

    After Crocodile Dundee's wife dies (sure he's a retired farmer and goes by the name "Charlie", but he's still got the hat), he is a bit sad. His estranged son Kenny (going by the name "Boots" to facilitate an uninspired gag), decides to take the old man fishing to cheer him up. On an apparent whim, Kenny decides they're going to fish off the tip of Australia, Cape York, rather than the local watering hole in country Victoria and the pair set off on a several thousand kilometre road trip. 90 odd minutes of tired one-note gags ensue.

    On paper, Charlie & Boots has a lot going for it. Two of Australia's most successful film character comedians from their respective generations (Paul Hogan and Shane Jacobson) unite for an amiable odd-couple road trip comedy co-written and directed by Dean Murphy, whose similarly styled previous film, Strange Bedfellows, was far more enjoyable than could reasonably have been expected. On screen, Charlie & Boots could not fail more dismally if everyone involved in its production had actively tried to sink the film.

    The gags are not only unoriginal, but awfully dated and poorly executed. In many cases the filmmakers make the most amateur of mistakes in simply assuming that quirky (regardless of how forced it is) equals funny. Old ladies being rude or man-hungry, kids wearing unusual costumes, old people being grumpy, people in the country having stilted conversations, people being embarrassed about their names. Nothing original. Nothing innately humourous. Worse yet, the few bits that should have elicited laughs (such as Roy Billing's character, who arrives in the last few minutes of the film) fall flat because of the painful grind of the rest of the film (a note to budding filmmakers: if only a bit of your movie is funny, make sure you put it on screen before the audience gets fed up with your movie).

    More painful than the film's attempted humour is its attempt at drama, which is poorly written and even more poorly acted. Likewise, anyone looking for an amiable story of a fun look at rural Australia will be severely disappointed. It must have taken a special effort to make just about every part of the country look and feel utterly interchangeable.

    Do yourself a favour and re-watch any of the past work of the cast and crew rather than endure Charlie & Boots.

Video

    The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is of reasonable quality, but far from reference material. The image is a little soft and mild grain is present throughout. Mild ghosting is visible around foreground figures. Shadow detail is good, however the colours are a little on the bright side and blacks look like very dark greys.

    Mild macro blocking is visible in the image. There is no sign of film artefacts in the transfer.

    This is a dual layer disc with a layer break occurring at 64:55, which was not noticeable on my equipment.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The film features English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kbps), English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 Kbps) and English for the visually impaired Dolby Digital 2.0 (224 Kbps) audio tracks.

    The audio is reasonably clear. The dialogue is at a decent level in the mix and is easy to discern.

    The film features a pleasant orchestral score with an occasional country twang, which suits the intended mood of the film.

    The surrounds are used to create a reasonably immersive atmosphere, although there is little subwoofer usage (though little need for it either).

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Audio Commentary

    An amiable but half-hearted commentary from the film's two leads and its producer. Skip it.

60 Minutes Featurette

    A fifteen minute advertorial segment from TV show 60 Minutes, exalting the Australiana of the film. Taken with a grain of salt this is a reasonably entertaining piece.

Showtime Special Featurettes

    Three ten minute bit spots plugging the film, originally produced for the Showtime pay-TV channel. One features generic interviews with the cast, another broad behind the scenes stuff and the last is footage from the film's red-carpet premiere. Disposable fluff, but reasonable viewing.

Webisodes

    9 short (1-5 minute) webisodes that follow the making of the film. Several of these are spoof pieces hosted by Shane Jacobson and these, in particular, are well worth a look.

    This Region 4 is currently the only available release of the film on DVD.

    This odd-couple road trip is an unfortunate misfire from some of Australia's most successful comedy actors.

    The audio and video are fair. The extras are quite generous and will appeal to fans of the film.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall