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Tony Martin, formally of television's 'D-Generation'/'The Late Show'/'Bargearse', drive-time's 'Martin and Molloy' fame, and more recently known for his part in the 2002 hit movie, 'Crackerjack' and the comedy, 'Kath And Kim', is eager to tell all we need to know about his latest venture: Australia's newest big screen comedy, 'Bad Eggs'.
Having written, produced and directed this, his debut film, Martin is understandably proud of this comedy/thriller, and yes, as much as I found plenty to laugh about (and with all involved with the making, why wouldn't I?), the thriller part of the tag somehow still managed to elude me.
"To me it's sort of funny because I've been going around the country and people are acting like this is something new or bizarre or something weird to do," begins Martin in an even defensive/explanatory manner. "It's funny - maybe it's just an age thing but I'm 39 and I grew up with movies like this, and as people say to me this is such a weird tone for a film I always think of another one. I remember 'Silver Streak' [with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder]; they were comedians but it ended with Patrick McGoohan, as nasty a villain as you've ever seen in any movie being decapitated. And you know?The Inspector Clouseau movies, where you had a funny character in the centre of an otherwise pretty serious jewel heist. 'Beverly Hills Cop', where a comedian [Eddie Murphy] is being threatened by Stephen Berkoff, who got shot to death rather gorily at the end. And 'Fletch' was a great detective movie that essentially if you took Chevy Chase out you still would've had a great thriller.
"There were a bunch of movies like this where they basically dropped comedic characters into an otherwise great thriller. It used to be a very common genre so it doesn't feel unusual to me at all, it feels almost overly familiar. But when I sat down and tried to think of other movies like this made in Australia, I actually couldn't think of one."
You see, while 'Bad Eggs' succeeds with its over the top silliness (accurately reflecting Martin's CV), I guess I personally found, if not a little appreciatively, the purported suspense to be a little old hat. Martin's reply not only affirmed my suspicions, in turn rekindling my affection for old 'seventies cop shows lost (ie: 'Division Four' and 'Homicide'), but he impressed me with his encyclopaedic knowledge of police dramas and comedy throughout the ages.
"The problem with comedies now is that everyone's funny and you don't get anyone playing the straight man. You don't get anyone playing the Margaret Dumont roles from the Marx Brothers movies. What happens with comedies is you get like a Yahoo Serious movie where everything's wacky and then you get a serious actor like Hugo Weaving in 'Reckless Kelly' or David Field in 'Mister Accident', and rather than playing their parts seriously they want to be funny as well so they're playing a real hammy, pantomime villain.
"So I thought, let's go the opposite way, let's have everyone else in the movie, apart from Mick [Molloy], Bob [Franklin] and Judith [Lucy], acting as though it really is a real serious kind of 'Blue Murder' theme. So the intention was never to write a thriller and then think, 'Oh hang on, this isn't going to work, let's make it a comedy.' It was meant to be a comedy and have everyone take it quite seriously rather than go for the 'Naked Gun' style approach, which is kind of a self-conscious parody.
"It's not so much that I don't like those kind of movies. I love them, but do you know what? You can't afford to do them in this country. I would love to do a Zucker Brothers style of movie but the budget you need is so big because they all require enormous props and sets that are only used for one second, do you know what I mean? So when I realised what our budget restrictions were going to be, I went, well it can't be like an action police movie with lots of stunts, it was to be more like a conspiracy police movie with lots of corridors, offices and underground car parks and like a 'no way out' kind of movie."
Fans of later Aussie police series are also going to find plenty to get excited about too, in way of the supporting cast: "I didn't self-consciously try and get people from those shows," avers Martin. "I mean, individually, Marshall Napier is someone I've loved since I was a kid in New Zealand, he of course has been in 'Police Rescue', which is probably what he's best known for. Bill [Hunter], I've always loved him as an actor as I think he's just great, and I met him on 'Crackerjack' and he agreed to be in 'Bad Eggs' without even reading the script because he had such a lot of fun in 'Crackerjack', but of course he was in 'Blue Murder'. Nicholas Bell, I met him on the set of 'The Games' and I think he's one of the best actors in the country, of course he was in 'Stingers'. Brett Swain, I've always been a huge fan of since 'Janus' and Steven Vidler, who we got at the last minute, of course he's been in a lot of cop shows like 'Halifax fp'. So it was funny, when we assembled the whole cast I suddenly went, 'Bloody hell, we've got someone from almost every cop show ever made.'" And not forgetting some pretty darn talented comedians too.
Steve Jones
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