SUMMER CITY is a low budget independent film from Australia. The story involves a quartet of young men who pack up their gear for a journey of boozing, surfing, girls and fun, but who eventually find something much darker instead: betrayal, revenge, and murder. This film's shortcomings are all too obviously a result of the low budget, which leads to standard point-and-shoot direction and hurried scripting. A lot of the story seems rather padded and it takes a while for the proper narrative to kick in, although it gets interesting when it does so. This is mostly worth watching to see now-famous actors in early roles, notably Mel Gibson and John Jarratt.

I couldn't believe how bad this movie was. It was like a rude surprise of a movie. It moves along the lines of Palm Beach or Pure S..t which is one of the worst Oz flicks I've seen. This movie done in the same trashy vein, where dialogue is like conversation, and scenes and clips are stung together, actors suddenly in different spots of scene. It is as though, it has all been done as a film student project, which in hindsight, scarily couldn't be far from the truth. The film again deals with the surf scene, again like in Puberty Blues, the male characters aren't that likable, especially Bisley's, rooting anything in sight, who suffers a tragic demise near the end, for knocking up a girl. SC gets so trashy at times, it almost borders on unwatchable, where from an appreciative style, manifests itself, at being so bad. Jarratt, the film's star is the only likable lad out of the foursome, cause he's not a pig like his mates. Even Mel is hard to warm to in this, only half likable if best. Jarratt's character is more adult and respective of women, while he's a conservative type too. The performances are only standard in this, and the high point, if you can call it that, rests in the last ten minutes, when the film takes a tragic and dramatic turn, conveying a consequential message about being young, insensitive and reckless. Check out Mel's dialogue take on surfing. This really bad, trashy pic, won't go down as one to remember, only for it's really trashy style, which is in abundance.

The star of the film was John Jarratt, who freaked a lot of people out a few years ago as Mick Taylor, the psychopathic killer in "Wolf Creek", as well as playing the Sergeant in "Australia". "Summer City" was one of the films made in the 1970s as Australia tried to get back to rebuilding a film industry that collapsed before World War II as the cinema chains found it cheaper to import films than to pay for local films to be made. Up until the late 1960s Australian Governments had no real interest in films, more important things had to be done. We did not get television until 1956 and if Melbourne had not held the Olympics in that year it probably would have been later.

The only reason to see this film is to get a glimpse of Mel Gibson at the beginning of his career. Unfortunately he is not the star, and the other characters are not interesting enough to carry the film. The plot is very thin, and the sound is almost unintelligible. However, Mel looks cute in his swim trunks. It's worth a bowl of popcorn and a giggle.