'Solo' Review

Occasionally a movie comes along that you know, as a ‘critic’, is not a great film, and yet you can’t help but recommend it. ‘Solo’, from first-time director Morgan O’Neill, is one of those films.

The winner of Project Greenlight, a Foxtel show which gives $1 million to a budding filmmaker to make a movie from their winning script (the show originated in the US as an invention of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck), ‘Solo’ is the definition of a crowd pleaser. It’s got everything you’d want from a cops-and-gangsters flick: guns, broads, bullets and booze, a generous dash of jazz and as an added bonus, a decent helping of Colin Friels. Friels plays Barrett, a standover man, who- of course- wants out, and- you guessed it- has to finish off that elusive one last job.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty decent way to spend two hours to me. Surprisingly, Friels isn’t totally convincing as the hard mob enforcer: his attempts to seem menacing occasionally produce an unintentional laugh, especially during seemingly solemn flashbacks to his long haired days as a rookie enforcer, but his performance does suggest the depth essential to his character. Vince Colosimo has a swaggering brilliance as a corrupt cop, and Bojana Novakovic straddles the required line between annoyance and believability as a meddling uni student. Perhaps most importantly, the film looks great, and you’d swear it had cost more than $1 million to produce.

So, yes. A thoroughly decent way to spend two hours. It also feels like a way that you’ve spent two hours many, many times before. But hell, it’s all about that one last time, isn’t it?

'Solo' is now showing.