Crocodile Dundee

Crocodile Dundee (1986)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Peter Faiman

Starring: Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, John Mellion, David Gulpilpil

From: Rimfire Films

Here is a movie that I only happen to be talking about due to its star getting into some recent legal problems (more on that later) and the fact that recently I noticed it was on television and I saw a few minutes of it.

Now, the first two movies in this series (I haven’t seen the third, and by most accounts, “not having seen it” is the best way to go) I’ve seen more than once before, but I was most familiar with the second one, oddly enough. I did not remember too much from the original, aside from its most famous bits and its ending in the subway… actually, I did see a few minutes of it while one of my two sisters happened to be watching it at home back when we all still lived in Illinois. There was a scene involving a guy snorting some blow, and I sure as hell didn’t remember that!

Recently on CMT I got to see a bit of this film, and it was entertaining enough where I decided that I should finally watch it in full after all of these years. Besides watching it on DVD rather than tape and avoiding their edits, I would also avoid their near-constant advertising that next weekend they’re having a Dukes of Hazzard marathon. Now, I like the Duke Boys and Daisy as much as any other guy, but the constant plugging (via graphics) was a major distraction. What else would you expect from a network that is part of a conglomerate that includes MTV, though?

As for this movie (technically Australian, although not one of the Australian films of old that I’d like to see one of these days) it’s definitely simple and straightforward, but it manages to work. Newspaper writer Sue flies to Australia (on the newspaper’s dime) in order to track down Mick “Crocodile” Dundee, as there was a legend about him surviving a major crocodile attack in the middle of nowhere down under. She gets there and meets him and his buddies; the attack was overinflated, but once she gets to interact with him and his country boy ways, she gets charmed… so much so that on the newspaper’s dime she flies him into New York City for an indeterminate amount of time AND he stays in a posh hotel downtown. Sure, we find out that her dad owns the newspaper and he’s filthy rich, but major LOL in 2010 thinking that the newspapers of today would be able to afford that kind of expense. Also, imagine in 2010 getting a guy who hasn’t ever been in a city before and has no sort of ID on him-and doesn’t even know when exactly he was born-for him to be able to fly out of the country… that’s just funny in hindsight, you know.

Like I said, the movie is rather simple (the plot gets started right away and there’s no let-up) and it’s totally predictable, but what makes it entertaining is the two leads, their performances, and their chemistry with each other. It’s no surprise that for the past 20 years now, Paul and Linda have been married in real life. It’s a quaint story but if it sounds appealing to you… it was an amiable and good-natured time... one that happened to involve transvestites, Mick Dundee grabbing their package to confirm that they were indeed dudes, that scene where a guy is sniffing coke, and Mick chatting with whores and then punching out their pimp. Like I said, good-natured!

Now, if you haven’t heard, Paul recently got into some trouble. He lives in L.A. but had to go back to Australia in order to attend his mother’s funeral; she was 101. The Australian government-in their kindness-thought this would be a good time to force him not to leave until he pays off alleged tax debts. I’m sure it’s a load of crap anyways, but doing this right after his mother’s funeral… what a dick thing to do. He was stuck there for like the past two weeks.

But, things changed in the past few days. He now is allowed to leave and go back home, although he still has the dispute going on. By the way, check out this link to read about the story, if only to see an image of Hogan goofing on the situation and dressing like a bandito. Awesome.

I’ll be back this Friday night with a review, and this time it’s of a movie now out on the big screen.