Les Patterson Save’s the World is as high brow as it gets. There's no illusion that it's a serious movie.
This isn't Kramer vs. Kramer.
Own up, who has ever watched that manure pile anyways?
Les Paterson Saves the World.
That's today's review. Filmed in 1987, this movie even escaped the maestro reviewer of Zisi Emporium for B Movies.
'How come I hadn't watched it?'
Then he requested I write it up and he'd give me a guest column.
But I'm not a movie reviewer, I said.
He said he wasn't until he posted his first review back in 2013.
He had a good point.
Good that someone believes in me.
I can watch a film a 100 times and still not get it.
I'm not the sharpest tool in the box.
'That's just bull shit.'
Ok, that argument ain't gonna cut the grade.
But I love trashy films littered with bad acting and hot chicks, I told Chris Zisi.
'Go for it,' he said, 'they are my kinda movies.'
Plots always elude me, I moaned.
Just rip it off Wikipedia and get on with your review, my mentor said.
UK's Empire magazine trashed the film.
I seriously think they missed the point. Even the current PM at the time, who went to the premiere of the movie in 1990 in Australia, almost walked out on the screening and promised to put a stop to the rorting in the film industry.
Just for these reasons alone, there's a certain guilty pleasure in watching this film.
The movie starts out with Les Patterson ( Barry Humphries) letting off a ripper of a fart and incinerating an Arab ambassador at some UN General Assembly meeting.
A movie has to start somewhere so why not at the end of a horse and cart?
Sir Les doesn't wear a bib - he drools and spits a fair bit - and nor does he wear a nappy.
Les Patterson isn't a Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan. Ok, Pierce was brilliant in The Matador and more akin to Les in this movie than anything Sean Connery has done in his movie career.
The acting is superb. It resonates of the late 80s where even Harvy Weinstein would have excelled if he was smart about the role he played.
Sir Les knows he's a sleaze bag.
Pamela Stephenson plays the sultry French research assistant. She featured in Superman III and is married to comedian Bill Connoly and hails from New Zealand. The dynamics between her, as Veronique Crudite and Les Patterson, is just pure dynamite.
She's more French than the French and Sir Les wants a couple of rounds of romping with her in the sack.
He really does.
If you don't believe me then watch Sir Les having a pillow talk with the hot Frenchy and drinking from a bottle of preserved organs. They are in a dry Middle Eastern country and Les aint fussy about his libations, more so when he's in the mission position next to a hot chick.
Alas, there are no catfights or lesbian mud wrestling in this film.
'I'm Les Paterson.'
Women swoon over him and melt into his embrace. Say it and spray it, that's our uncouth Les Paterson who doesn't mind scratching his balls and showing his tackle for a bit of 'titillation' for the sexy 'Good Friday' girls.
This movie hasn’t even reached cult status. It’s that fucking good.
Les Patterson is the kind of guy who could gatecrash a shindig for America’s Cup on Rhode Island and be applauded for being a genuine lout. He could also hold his own too.
Joan Rivers plays the role of U.S. President in the film. She's a big fan of Barry Humphries and it's good to see support from those who count.
Australia listens when America speaks.
After a phone call from the US president, the Australian PM pats Les Paterson on the back and says he ’s now Ambassador to a Middle Eastern country.
Isn't this how things are done in the real world?
Just look at Australia’s role in the UN peacekeeping forces in East Timor. Now that poor benighted country has to pay high utility bills with a sporadic electricity grid while Australia got access to its rich gas fields.
That aint fair, is it?
We should all boycott gas and go solar.
I’m sure Sir Les Patterson would have seen through the hypocrisy of Australian diplomacy in that part of the world.
What does Rotten Tomato have to say about this movie?
It was actually far more honest and responsive than Empire which had a really high reading on the Sourgrapesmeter.
It was about 33 percent on the Tomatometer, just about right for any B grade movie out there that doesn't pretend to be anything that it isn't.
Give me an obese and lewd middle-aged drunkard any day over the dumb and mute Mr. Bean.
