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February 20, 2000
Reporter : Peter Thompson

Peters Verdict -  It's got some huge laughs and a refreshing, rebellious spirit that leaves you feeling good. I recommend it.
Director -  Aleksi Vellis
Main Cast -  Nick Giannopoulos, Geraldine Turner, Lucy Bell, Abi Tucker
Genre -   Comedy

For the last 30 years we Australians have been congratulating ourselves on the growth of our film industry. It's true, there have been some fantastic successes. But the bald truth is we've hit the wall, fallen into a hole, lost the plot. We're exporting actors and directors and turning Australia into just another Hollywood location, on the cheap. While Australian faces are still visible on our television screens, and we're happy enough to watch them, we're increasingly reluctant to pay good money to see our own movies.

Unless, that is, they make us laugh. Nick Giannopoulos and his mates have been making audiences laugh for a long time on stage and TV. Now The Wog Boy makes the high jump to the big screen.

But forget any notion that this is about migrants as pitiful victims. If they're going to call little Stevie Karamatsis a wog, so be it. He'll grow up to be the best wog in town. He's got the car; the '69 Valiant Pacer; the threads and the attitude. Together with his best friend Frank, he's a king.

Written by Giannopoulos himself, together with Chris Anastassiades, and directed by Aleksi Vellis, The Wog Boy is a raunchy, irreverent celebration of sex, ethnic diversity and welfare rip-offs. But like so many good ideas, it was born out of anger. Fifteen years ago, Nick Giannopoulos was a very angry young man.

"Wogs out of Work was written out of pure frustration, and not being able to find work as an actor," says Giannopoulos.

And to everyone's surprise, the little skit performed at the 1987 Melbourne Comedy Festival mushroomed into a huge popular success.

"All of a sudden, all these people from the suburbs, you know, you could hear the V8 engines roaring outside the cinema." said Giannopoulos.

"Is this where Wogs out of Work is screening?"

"Actually, it's a live show."

"Yeah, that's what I said, is this where it's screening?"

"And they started coming in their tracky daks; you know, these people had never been to a theatre before. They were cinema-going people, TV people, people who sit at home and watch videos, I don't know, shopping centres. And here they were in this trendy inner-suburban suburb, Fitzroy in Melbourne, with their feet up on the chairs, eating popcorn... It wasn't theatre, it was soccer!" said Giannopoulos.

There's a lot of Nick Giannopoulos in the character of Steve Karamatsis, but to create a platform from which to launch the movie, Giannopoulos has had to create a public persona which people can relate to.

"Nick Giannopoulos, me, is a very boring person. I just like to sit at home, watch TV, go to the movies and read books. But Nick Giannopoulos, a.k.a. "The Wog Shows Guy", has to appear as this vibrant, vivacious, funny guy. It's not dissimilar to what a Jim Carrey, or any of those guys, would do."

With his collaborators, he's constructed a high-spirited, irreverent comedy involving anarchic rascals who see the Australian government as fair game. Characters include a gorgeous pair of sisters played by Lucy Bell and Abi Tucker, and a right-wing dragon of a politician, impersonated with gleeful abandon by Geraldine Turner.

But underlying the farce, physical comedy and romantic entanglements, there's the inescapable reality of the social and cultural issues that confront millions of Australians every day.

"Very much so. There's a lot of anger in Nick Giannopoulos, which I guess is why I turn to comedy," said Giannopoulos.

"The conflict within Steve, the wog boy, is does he go on through life being the wog boy and keeping up that image of being the wog boy, or (without trying to ruin the movie) does he move on, get rid of that chip on his shoulder and finally come to terms with what it means to him to be Australian," said Giannopoulos.

"I think it's time we all relaxed a little bit, you know? Though I hope we don't relax too much, 'cause then I won't have anything to write about! Australians should understand that being Australian and Vietnamese or Italian or Greek at the same time, that's okay. We can't be what we were in the '50s and '60s. We're no longer the ocker. Let's just accept what we really are... And that is a whole variety of races and cultures and people who are living very harmoniously."

The Wog Boy is opening across the country on a record number of screens for an Australian movie, and it will be facing some stiff competition. But my hunch is that if you go you'll find a lot of people have taken a punt on this one. It's no cinematic masterpiece, but it's got some huge laughs and a refreshing, rebellious spirit that leaves you feeling good. I recommend it.