Caught this film on TV the other night, since I'd never heard of it and the description looked interesting. It was released by UA so I thought it would be entertaining, since a major film company has some standards. Pete is a misfit who wears exactly the same facial expression throughout the entire film, while Rikki is an improbable combination of singer and geologist, the latter part of which comes in unusually handy halfway through the film. They drive into the outback in mom's old car and somehow become rich while Pete invents stuff and then his mates try to break him out of jail. It's as dull and uneven as it sounds. The songs are just okay. There is an attempt to liven things up with quirky characters but they never go anywhere. The great Bill Hunter is the only saving grace, at turns exasperated or scheming, and in the film's only truly hilarious scene, is driven to madness by a non-stop proselytizer as he angrily joins him in singing hymns. He looks like he's going to snap any second.

Tracing paper thin plot, WEAK conflict and so much forced quirkiness that it'll make your head ache! The characters are all unbelievable and SUPER cliché. And its about a brother and sister...there are many moments where there would be sexual tension and excitement in their conversations if they weren't brother and sister, even if they weren't love interests. But its a brother and sister...and they're not even interesting. The guy Pete makes weird machines and acts as quirky as he can, but it's all forced, trite and poorly executed. There are several scenes where the filmmakers have Pete do something quirky and crazy but its unrealistic enough to seem stupid and forced in there, for example at one point he's driving a car and his sister is asleep next to him (awesome, HIS SISTER, right guys, she's coming along for the trip yah! A crazy "ZANY" trip with his...sister...) anyway he climbs out onto the roof of the car after tying leather straps to the steering wheel and steers from the roof. I don't know how he was accelerating and braking, but screw it right! Its quirky and zany! So many other ridiculous scenes like that, but it's worse because there is terrible dialogue supporting a terrible "story."

Australian cinema has always captivated me. Their cinema is refreshing. "Rikky and Pete" would revive memories of the young rebel in one's life. As a film, you cannot compare it with great cinema of top directors--yet it is charming because it captures the non-conformist in all of us. The mechanical genius Pete invents a gadget that uses the childish paper-plane concept to deliver a newspaper. The brother sister bonding is well portrayed. The jabs at soft-headed evangelists are also well done. The anti-establishment note of the film is the refrain throughout the running time--with one realistic line "I am afraid" coming from the jailed Pete after contemplating the willfully open jail door.While the film is about cars, inventions, inefficient cops, Eartha Kitt, loonies--the work appears disjointed and immature. Yet some of the minor characters are superb. Examples are the two ladies--the young Tetchie Agbayani as Flossie (Pete's girlfriend at the mine) and Dorothy Alison as Pete's rich mother.The element of satire that runs through conversation and actions lifts up the product to a level of above average cinema.

Hollywood has never known what to do with Asian actresses. It took an Australian woman director to bring out the full potential of the lovely Tetchie Agbayani as Pete's girlfriend in this gentle Aussie comedy. The scene where she is negotiating to get a rise out of her boss (double entendre intended) shows her to be a highly talented comic actress.I actually saw the film because of Tetchie's participation in it, and was pleasantly surprised by the movie as a whole. It delivers quiet chuckles rather than belly laughs, but leaves you feeling good. It deserves to be more widely appreciated.