Ben O'Shea: This Is One Of Hugo Weaving’s Top 3 Performances Of All Time.

Ben O’Shea reviewed the new Hugo Weaving movie The Rooster and really liked it , he told Clairsy & Lisa all the reasons why.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great the flick with Ben o'she Good morning Ben, Good
morning guys. Australian theater, cinema, all of it royalty today
Hugo Weaving.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
There's a bit of Ossie theater and Cinema Royalty in
this film. So Hugo Weaving has got a new film.
He's reached a really interesting time in his career, like
he's done, he's done at all. Like his big breakthrough
came on TV in the eighties with the Body Line
series about cricket with Don Bradman. He played Douglas Joking,
the English captain, and that was his first role out

(00:36):
of Nier, which was really really impressive performance. And then
he went on to do Ozsie films like Proof, which
was a classic, and then.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Of course the in different films, different.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Films, a very interesting career, and then of course Agent
Smith in The Matrix which is iconic, l Rond in
Lord of the Rings. And so he's done everything really
along the way, and now he's reached a stage in
his career sort of the Jack Thompson here where he's
playing these kind of curmudgeonally characters. But I would say

(01:06):
some of the best work of his entire long long
career in acting. Over the past few years, he was
in The Royal Hotel, that sort of psychological outback thriller
which was which is pretty good, and now in The Rooster.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
It's a big call.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
But I would say this would be in his top
three performances.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Of his life, and that is a big and.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
I would say one of my top five Ossie performances
on a cinema screen that.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
I've ever seen. Wow, that's impressive.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
And not that the movie is probably at that level,
but in terms of Hugo Weaving, if you're a Hugo
Weeding or if you just yeah, we just appreciate fine acting.
Oh my gosh, this is just so incredible. My hair
is a standing up on the back of my neck
just thinking. So basically it's so. It's directed by Mark
Leonard Winter, who's an actor who you might have seen
in The news Reader, the ABC TV series.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Fires in Balabo.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
He's in a stuff himself, escape from Pretoria, and so
now this is this is one of his first feature
films and it was at Sinnyfest last year. It was
in competition for one hundred thousand dollars prize and it's
I guess on the surface level. It's a tale about
loneliness and how blokes in society can feel loneliness because
you know, they don't know how to reach out and
get emotional support, which is a story that we kind

(02:21):
of know, we know that that's a real thing. And
so it follows the journey of this young police officer
who's kind of separated from his wife. He's sort of
living by himself, played by Phoenix Rerai, a fairly new
actor to the scene, and he's living in the bush
in central Victoria. He's got a rooster and he keeps

(02:41):
he keeps a few chooks. Yeah, he's got chocks and
a rooster. Then, and he's kind of struggling with, you know,
what's going on in his personal life, with his wife
leaving him and you know, all that sort of stuff.
And then one day his rooster is eaten by a
fox and he's kind of it kind of really affects
him emotional and at the same time, his best mate,
who he hasn't really seen for a while they've kind

(03:03):
of become a bit of stranged, has died in sort
of mysterious circumstances in the bush. His body's found in
the bush and they're not sure if it's a suicide
or what has happened. He kind of goes out and
decides to camp for a few days at the scene
of where his mate died, just to kind of reconnect
emotionally to what might have happened. He's having a good
run now he's not having a good run at all.

(03:23):
And while he's in the bush, he hears some noises
and he sort of realizes there's someone else in the
bush with him, and it's this hermit played by Hugo
Weaving who's lived off the grid for.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Years and years and years.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
And then all of a sudden, this fellow who's a
police officer starts to think, we hang on a minute,
maybe this hermit has actually been involved in the death
of my mate, or at the very least knows something
about it. And so sort of they start hanging out,
and then essentially this young police officer moves in with
Hugo Weaving's character in his little bush hut, and they
sort of have this exploration of their own histories and

(03:59):
emotional trauma together, and Hugo Weavings hermit is a loose
unit like at one moment he almost seems like a
larger than life sort of thespian and he sort of
spouts literature and then he's also drinking you know, bottles
of red every other minute. And he has this busted
up old ping pong table that he's just set up

(04:19):
in the bush and he just hits the ball to
himself and then he starts playing ping pong and he says,
you know, the point is not to win, it's just
to keep playing. You just got to keep going, keep
getting the ball back, which is kind of his you know,
sort of ethos for life, Like that's kind of his
man trait exactly. And so then as as this sort
of unfolds, as these two blokes get to know each other,
you start to realize that, you know, there's some stuff

(04:40):
going on in Hugo Weaving's character's background that has kind
of led to where he is now sort of some
really really heartbreaking stuff that he's never really been able
to process or get past. And so his relationship with
this young police officer maybe gets him a bit closer
to some of that resolution. And so it is it's
a deeply affecting movie. It's some incredible scenes in the

(05:03):
Victorian Bush, like the nature is a real character in
the film as well, like you know, Phoenix RERAI as
this young police officer. You know, you know, maybe not
quite to the same level of Hugo Weaving, but I
think the challenge for this young actor is, you know,
like how do you keep up with one of Australia's
best actors in one of their greatest performances, Like you

(05:24):
just just can't.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
It was in the Heights, Yeah, that's yeah. I knew
I read has.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
A fine young actor and I think, you know, in
this film, I think he's a really interesting casting choice.
But you know, he's pushing it up hill a bit
like sharing scenes with Hugo who is just on song.
But you know, this is a film that you would
absolutely just watch to see Hugo Weaving as a master
class in acting, and you know it really gets you,
gets you by the end for sure, Like this is

(05:50):
This Is It's a kind of a simple premise, but
it's well executed and it's it's an example of you know,
I guess what Australian films can be when they don't
try too hard.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
All right, Well, how many cocodoodle doos are you get? Good?
I'm going to give it three three and a half
Cocood very good. It's good. I just want to see
it for his acting performance now, Thanks Ben, Thanks guys.