User reviews

An Aussie cult classic. Although a fictional story it is set in a real VFL (now AFL) club, Collingwood, one of the biggest sporting clubs in Australia (as a Carlton man it hurts me to say that :)). Shot on location at Collingwood's home ground of Victoria Park it features real Magpie footballers of the era, including Rene Kink. All of game footage, with the exception of those featuring John Howard is actual game footage from VFL game of the time & featuring many Melbourne football identities including Lou Richards & Scotty Palmer.

I first saw "The Club" in high school as the play the film was based on was part of the English required reading list. I enjoyed the film but thought that with the Australian Rules Football setting, people unfamiliar with the sport would find many of the references obscure and dislike the film. Having seen "The Club" again recently, I realised that although somewhat dated, the film is as much about the wheeling and dealing that occurs off the field as it is about the action on the field. The action that takes place in the boardroom would be instantly familiar to fans of any sport and it's in these scenes the movie comes to life. Any producer wanting to remake "The Club" with the American market in mind needs only to replace the references to Australian Rules football with baseball or basketball and the script would be ready to go into production.

The Producers would also be wise to recast Jack Thompson as the coach as he gives a great understated performance that deserves an encore.

Certainly worth a viewing on a wintry evening.

A very good if not wholly accurate film about aussie rules football. The characters are in most cases larger than life but are on the whole believable. The backstabbing and wrangling is as you imagine it to be and the dislike of the board by the players is tangible. You will laugh and cry at the antics of the Magpie`s. Watch it, you won`t regret it.

I saw this when I was a teenager in the '80s when it was aired by the Beeb. It is an amusing and droll take on the '70s Aussie macho style. Mustachioed fairhaired Jim Thompson is highly professional as the coach. The abundant sun and light of Australia are astonishing. It is a stablemate to 'Goodbye Pork-pie' (1981) the hilarious and adventurous New Zealand road-movie.

A great little Aussie film that I would recommend to anyone interested in the above summary and should try and track down.

In spite of it being almost 20 years old it doesn't feel in anyway dated, except for the fashion & hair styles of course. But what we have is basically a struggling Aussie Rules football team, Collingwood (a real team by the way, filmed on location at their stadium), coping with boardroom power struggles & player mutinies while the under achieving coach tries to get the team to the championship finals by the end of the season.

Okay, so this kind of scenario has been done to death by a great many Hollywood movies but there's something rather special with this Aussie gem. The mixture of comedy & drama is just right, preventing the film from either drifting to one extreme (excessive political dogma) or to the other extreme of sheer lampoon & farce.

The much under-rated Jack Thompson plays Laurie, the coach of the Collingwood team, greatly admired by his players but despised by certain members of the board for his lack of team discipline & dearth of any trophies.

Thompson's true nemesis is Frank Wilson, as Jock. An old time footballer & coach, but is now part of the board with a host of trophies to his name. Yet gets bouts of jealousy as soon as anyone tries to usurp his achievements, and that's why he's got it in for Thomspon.

Jock also has it in for the Chairman of the club, Ted (Graham Kennedy), who although loves the club and has seen every single game since he was a kid, has little or no political experience with Collingwood and only got his position through clever negotiation. In essence his true job is nothing more than an owner of a meat pie factory.

If Jock can somehow create a scandal against Ted so that Ted has to resign, then he'll be able to become the new Chairman and complete his ambition with the club and sack those who he dislikes rightly or wrongly.

Snuggling alongside Jock is Gerry (Alan Cassell) as the club's chief administrator, who is cunning & spends most of his time playing off both Ted's & Laurie's weaknesses so that he can gain from a position of strength.

And that's just the conflict in the boardroom! There's still the problems on the pitch with the players going on strike every five minutes or the club's most expensive purchase spending all his time smoking dope and convincing himself he's too good for an average team like Collingwood.

All the main actors excel in their parts; there's no driftwood here. Bruce Beresford keeps everything nicely focused without having to complicate matters with too many sub-plots or excessive bouts of boardroom politics.

Although the ending is perhaps a little too predictable and even if you're not fully versed on the rules of Australian Rules Football, don't worry, just take it easy and watch the fun & froth.

highly recommended.

*****/*****

This is simply a great Aussie film. Unfortunately, films are just not made this way anymore. Not only is it a great satire about a football club, which has probably not changed in 30 years, it is also a wonderful commentary on the commercialization of sport. Comparisons to sport and war are easy after seeing this film. Great performances from Jack Thompson, John Howard and Graham Kennedy as well as cameos from a few of Australia's footballing legends. Bruce Beresford's direction is superb, the theme song became legend and the film is one hilarious argument. It gets better every time you watch it and if you haven't seen it yet, you have to see it soon.

Now that it is over 40 years, the movie is quite dated. Some of the football action is not quite there, particularly the inserted action just looks plastic and out of place.

Every time I watch this film I marvel at how well written and acted this film is. It is an excellent analysis of the manouvering and back-stabbing that goes on at a football club but avoids the pitfalls of being overly serious and is also very funny.

There are so many memorable characters one could mention but that the one that stands out for me is the character of Gerry, the club administrator. In every scene he's in, you see how, whenever he has something serious to say to someone, he uses terms like 'we' or 'the committee' - he never uses the term 'I' so that he slyly absolves himself of responsibility of any of the hard decisions that are made. As Laurie says, he is an oily weasel. Sadly, he's the type of person you would find on the AFL Commission these days.

Finally, to correct a previous reviewer, the song is 'Up there Cazaly', named after the footballer Roy Cazaly.

This might have been entertaining to watch on stage as a play, but not as a film. After a while I just got sick and tired of the constant yelling and over-acting. It was like they were all auditioning for a NIDA scholarship or something.

The Club certainly showcases some fantastic Australian actors, and they all get to show-off their chops here. Despite that, it wasn't always convincing and I found myself tuning out because the yelling just became white noise after a while.

The film accurately captures a particular era of Aussie Rules Football, and frankly, a great period in Australian culture itself. As a time capsule, the film works really well. Its use of dark humour was also effective at times, though didn't always land well.

It was nice seeing faces that have since passed and are sadly lacking in the Australian footy landscape these days. Not much footy here, so as to not alienate non-footy fans, but I just wasn't enjoying myself all that much by the end.

"The Merger" is a far superior Aussie Rules film.

Just love this flick it really only for a particular client ie: Australian mainly & especially if your involved with a footy club & was playing in & around this era still get goose bumps when i hear "there's a lot more to football than really meets the eye " up there cazaly a real cult movie & one i will never not wish to watch over an over again

This film may lack the polish and production qualities of the Hollywood and British movies of the same time. But it came at a time when Australia was making good films about Australian subjects using Australians. The acting is good and the script is well written.

The Club is without a doubt one of my all time favourite films. I hold this masterpiece in such high esteem that I have two copies of the video, one for lending people and one for my own enjoyment.

Non sports fans are often put off by films about sport (particularly a minority sport such as Aussie Rules – sorry convicts!) but to describe the club as a sports movie would be doing Davis Williamson's superb screenplay (based on his own play) a huge disservice. It has very few od the cleche sporting action sequences that hamper many films in the genre, and relies rather on the sharp dialogue and confrontations between the characters.

I honestly couldn't recommend The Club highly enough. The combination of great acting and, without doubt, the best collection of one liners in any movie, make The Club an absolute must for all.

Watch it and sing with me……..'Up there Gazalie……'

Again David Williamson has shone, and showed us how his plays become gem movies. If you're a footy player, you're gonna love this movie cause you'll relate with it. C'mon, let's face it, every footy player is expendable. What's happening here, is just buck passing. What I loved about Jack Thompson's character, the best player in this one, is he shoots straight from the hip. It's such an effective performance, you'd think he really was footballer. Frank Wilson and Graham Kennedy, (sorry, Kennedy, a slimy captain is the best performer here) are the representatives of this team, who signed on a new player, yes John Howard in his much thinner days, who'd rather watch a seagull, then kick a ball. Howard, the comic in this tale, too sees through this dirty game, where a score of good players are removed, so the club fights back. It's great when Howard pulls Wilson's chain, with a childhood story. The happy ending that will send hearts appeased, will make you howl with victory, it's message of fighting back, has never hit harder. Watch this for Kennedy's finest moment as the great actor and legendary icon he was.

Great play, pity about the screenplay is all I can say.

This play remains one of the most insightful views into the world of sports cum business ever scripted. Even truer today than when the play was written, it paints a picture of a club having to face the fact that loyalty and honour don't mean much in the modern game, either to players or their employers. Those who don't or won't accept the new hard nosed and ruthless system seem destined to fail - although the final scene offers a glimmer of hope. The whole thing is served with a big dash of humour - the scene where the bumbling old Jock unknowingly tokes up with troubled star player Geoff and is led through an increasingly unbelievable story of Geoff's patricide and attraction for his sister is priceless.

It is a far deeper examination of the different views of the game and motives of the characters than Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday, which is a thousand times more flashy but also considerably more simplistic and unsubtle in its characterisations.

So it is a great play, and if you don't have a theatrical of it handy, the film is better than just reading it.

But the film was made on low production values and without much desire for realism. As a result, there is a significant cringe effect, which distracts from the point of the film. The scene of Collingwood training with a total of about six guys kicking a couple of footballs around encapsulates the refusal of the producers to just go the extra few yards to make this film a little realistic.

If the play is on, see it. Such is the quality of the play, hopefully sooner or later there will be a film remake. Otherwise, see the film, but ignore the visuals and concentrate on the screenplay.

The movie was great i'd like to see a up to date version with current AFL players i reckoned it be one that would work if it was remade :) bring Back Jack Thompson :D I bought the DVD and its now on Pay TV Fox Classics :D the movie hasn't really dated gee look at a young John Howard to him today big changes you wouldn't at him now i read he was around 29 when he was in The Club. great scenes of Melbourne, why did they have to base it on Collingwood ;) surly they could have done more then 1 i love the up their Cazaly great tune :) it was good to see real Footy when they played for the love of sport. Now its a Business money money money ,

I watched this on BBC2 back in the eighties ( a fellow British reviewer claimed he saw this on Channel 4 at the time which I highly doubt as BBC2 Friday film night was usually a film from Australia, NZ, France, Germany etc) and though you can tell it has been transitioned from a stage play, it still hits the right notes with the comedy and one-liners, I think Jack Thompson slightly overdoes it but maybe because of the structure remains unchanged from the stage then he goes over-the-top to compensate but star of the film is Jock Riley played by Frank Wilson whose best line in the film is when meeting Haywood's student girlfriend who is majoring in history 'some of us study history while some of us make history.' I laughed for days after it. A great film.

Highly enjoyable if or because it seems somewhat cliched. Strong acting and several memorable, humorous scenes. The author clearly knows and is fond of his characters, even the rotten ones. The scenes of that strange Australian religion called footy are fun to watch.

"Everything is so awful in this movie it's funny," noted a previous review that awarded the film but one star. How right that is, but not in the sense meant...everything that happens in this splendidly rhetorical saga of a small Aussie Rules Football club is so awful that it's utterly and memorably hilarious. Never mind that sports films can be dull, that isn't the focus. A declining Melbourne footy club buys an expensive player, resented by the team, who is stoned much of the time. The club president, arrested for an assault on a stripper, is a just successful pie salesman with money who loves the game. The coach, cheated of fame when he was a player and formerly subject to alcohol problems, struggles to save his job and do it well at the same time. An ex-coaching board member wants to defeat the current coach before his own record is beaten. The business manager is concerned only with profit. The team captain is in danger of being traded. David Williamson's acerbic play reaches the screen with a dream Australian cast who fight each other in the boardroom with such verbal sting it will leave your ears red. Jack Thompson in his prime, John Howard when he was thin, Graham Kennedy at his wits' best, Frank Wilson and Alan Cassell driving verbal nails and vintage location setting exactly where the story is depicted...plus actual players from the time. THE CLUB will stay with you for life, regardless of when you see it. Seldom is a movie taken from a play so successfully transferred. The musical theme, "Up There Cazaly," a dedication to famed player Roy Cazaly, adds icing to a finely layered literary cake. Ten big ones, cobber.

"The Club" by David Williamson was an excellent play which addressed many issues about the changing face of sport. This particular film does justice to the play by having actors that give solid and believable performances. If you have seen the play, you may not enjoy certain aspects of this film, but the use of more then a single room or set adds a new dimension to the story. Footage of actual games as well as real club locations is added. Perhaps the best part of this film is the ending as it is very true and satisfying. Worth watching - even if you have no interest in the sport of Aussie Rules.