Woodyanders Review of Goodbye Pork Pie

Goodbye Pork Pie (1980)

An enjoyably lightweight screwball goof of a seriocomic road movie delight

[8/10 · 23 October 2006]

Kelly Johnson and Tony Barry are affably boorish and unaffected as a couple of aimless, disaffected, alienated everyday nobody ne'er-do-well blokes -- Johnson's a nutty, reckless juvenile delinquent hell-raiser while Barry's a dejected middle-aged loser who's just broken up with his wife -- who decide to make a cross country jaunt across New Zealand in a tiny stolen yellow rental car in this disarmingly modest and unpretentious seriocomic road movie delight. The misfit duo inadvertently become wanted fugitives and subsequent overnight criminal celebrities when they stiff a gas station attendant out of several bucks worth of fuel. During their wacky misadventures our scruffy anti-heroes pick up a daffy lady hitch-hiker (the adorably vacuous Claire Oberman), cunningly elude the bumbling cops at every turn, and run into a fair share of eccentrics who want to eagerly capitalize on their newfound fame and notoriety. Director Geoff Murphy compensates for the hackneyed chase premise by coaxing funny, endearingly loose and zany performances from his uniformly excellent cast ("The Quiet Earth" 's Bruno Lawrence has a nice bit as a laid-back, pot-smoking chopshop owner), dynamically staging a few thrilling automobile stunts, keeping the pace swift and unflagging throughout, and neatly mining a winningly droll line in crudely amusing off-color humor. A marvelously mellow jazz score, beauteous backwoods locations, slick cinematography, and a plausibly downbeat, yet still satisfying ending round off this likably lightweight screwball goof of a movie.