It's obvious the producers and director of the film were inspired by American History X, Boyz In the Hood, and other American movies which deal with multiculturalism, racism, and family. Unfortunately, inspiration alone does not meet the requirements when trying to produce a quality film. This film is a shining example of directors trying too hard to implement ideas from other movies into their films without building character structure, emotional investment, and atmosphere. The result of which is this film. The movie had so much more potential. The movie stars George Basha and Firass Dirani with supporting performances from Doris Younane and Clare Brown. The inexperience of the cast is made more obvious with each scene by director, David Field and this is not more obvious than in the melodramatic final scenes. The story revolves around Basha who plays John Markos, a Lebanese-Australian who has just been released from prison (we never know the reason or how long he has been in jail). On Johns return home, his mother, Mary, played by Doris Younane, greets him with open arms and is glad her son is home. He is also welcomed into his home by younger brother, Charlie, played by Firass Dirani (some Australians might remember him from the latest edition to the Underbelly series), who seems to have acquired some new friends since his brothers absence. The lack of a strong male presence in the household (their father died – don't know how, or when) seems to have had a dramatic effect on Charlie and John tries to steer his younger brother away from his new friends, guiding him, sometimes with brute force (not much of an example) towards a better future. Charlie has become more like his older brother and tries to make easy money because he doesn't want to work for a lousy three hundred dollars a week to clean toilets, especially if the owner of the place is Aboriginal. So, Charlie starts dealing drugs and is introduced to drug king pin Ibo, played by Michael Denkha who hires Charlie and his friend to run drugs for him. While this is going on, John tries to get his life in order by getting a job at the local gym and forming a relationship with Sydney, played by the beautiful Clare Brown. In spite of his older brother's best efforts, Charlie continues his path of self destruction. The rest of the movie deals with the consequences of being involved in gang activity and the growing relationship between John and Clare.The producer does not lack passion but rather direction and suffers from lack of subtlety. The writing is amateurish and this is can be seen in the outcome of the film, making the central performance of the piece somewhat insignificant and lacklustre. 2 stars of out 5.

This is a horrible film made to glorify Lebanese gangsters as hero's. Not to mention the acting is just stupid most of the time. Most of this film contains young Lebanese men purporting that their way of life is somehow more meaningful then those who obey laws and regulation of a country.Before a film showing Lebanese youth as hardcore gangsters, I think the creator should consider perhaps making a film based on a Australian-Lebanese people in a love story, its a better start to a Australian film industry in the eyes of the rest of the world.My advice is to rent a Bollywood musical instead, you'll feel better about life at the end of it.

Mention that catch phrase, "Australian values" and you will only be taken seriously by the rather unpleasant Nazi types who whipped up the Cronula anti Lebanese riots a couple of years ago (They were referred to briefly in the "Bra Boys" documentary narrated by Russel Crowe and form a back drop to the dramatic culmination of this film). John (George Basha), the hero in "Combination" dismisses Australian values as no more substantial than football and beer drinking.But the film makes the case for an Australian culture, Australian values that exclude the use of guns and vendettas as a means of settling conflict. The heroine's father tells his daughter, Sydney (Clare Bowen), that he was threatened by a Lebanese worker whom he had to dismiss from his job some years ago. He has no objection against the Lebanese people who have transformed his neighbourhood – just the fact that guns are now a commonplace item in the community in which he raised her. That is not a cheap shot by a bigot. It is a reasonable statement of fact. The hero of the film contemplates killing the criminal who has murdered his brother. He is encouraged to do so by the killer's neighbours when he confronts him, gun in hand. But he rejects the idea and (hopefully) renders his brother's killer impotent by publicly humiliating him. That is an example of Australian values. It is a valid difference between the more unpleasant aspects of the culture in Lebanon and that in Australia and it is worth celebrating. "Combination" does just that in a remarkable and satisfying manner.There is another really affirming idea embodied in the script, written by the George Basha, the Lebanese-Australian lead actor. It is an aboriginal Australian who councils him against a vendetta and provides the assistance necessary to extricate himself and his brother from the criminal milieu in which they have become mired The one thing that all the people who criticize Baz Lurhman's film, "Australia", fail to perceive is that it demands that all Australians recognize that the Aboriginal inhabitants have had a set of values (culture) for thousands of years that could be held up as instructive for those who have settled on their land. It is a rare thing to see this virtue celebrated in Australian literature. "Combination" seems to reinforce that notionBut all this may make the film sound preachy and sanctimonious. It is anything but that. It contains uniformly fabulous performances, script and direction that give the film narrative momentum and cinematography and sound that transports the viewer into the locales in which it was filmed. Director David Field, who created that wonderful character Acko in Gregor Jordan's film "Two Hands" some years ago, gives Basha the necessary space to concoct a character whose smouldering, barely restrained, macho authority brings to mind Richard Burton as Jimmy Porter in "Look Back in Anger" or Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski in "Streetcar Named Desire". His direction has more of the operatic tone of an Elia Kazan "Streetcar" than the laid back bravura of a Gregor Jordan – Brian Brown "Two Hands", but let's put that down to the hot blooded Leb culture he is portraying on the screen. Clare Bowen's touching portrayal of a fresh faced young Aussie girl is a world away from Vivien Leigh's jaded Blanche or (perhaps more appropriately) Kim Hunter's Stella. But it is none the less powerful for that. Such is the quality of the script she is given to perform, that it does not take much to imagine her parents being seduced by the virtues of the Lebanese culture with which she has been smitten. The exotic cuisine, the foot stomping, hypnotic dance, the loyalty to family. Wed that to the virtues of an Australian culture that embraced and absorbed more Jewish victims of Nazi concentration camps than any other country and turned Melbourne into the second largest Greek city in the world and you have a flawed but none the less worthy place to bring up the child gestating in Sydney's womb. Surely that is worthy of celebration When a country's film industry can not only document the problems it faces but also suggest ways in which they can be overcome with such a keen eye and in such an entertaining manner, things can't be as bad as the Nazi types would like to have you believe. As Rampaging Roy Slaven, that other Australian prophetic voice would say, "This is a good news story"Bravo "Combination" You really rock!

THE COMBINATION is the first Australian film to be shown in it's country of origin this year and it's already become a news story - not for it's quality but because there have been incidents between what we are told are Lebanese gang members and theatre staff.It would be nice if the film were to prove something substantial. What it is however is a passable gang warfare subject, made without undue sensationalism (it is particularly timid with sex) and preaching anti violence. The inclusion of recent race riot TV actuality tells us they want to be taken seriously.The film takes a predictable multicultural line with old Australia dismissed as football, beer and meat pies, as against the leather lounges and sumptuous Arab meals with music to which hard man writer-star Basha introduces so blonde object of his affections Bowen, who comes from a family where scotch on the rocks seems to be the main food item. The Lebanese gang has one Asian kid, though he does back off when it's time to face off with the so mean (white) drug pushers. Basha gets a job in a gym run by stand up aborigines. The white kids spit and mug solitary members of the other gang.The dynamic of school yard gangs is better, though we can't but wonder when the kids get to do any study, even though younger brother Dirani does once make it as far as the library.One note performances are strong and the Western Sydney setting is effective and still unfamiliar. Particularly choice are the pusher's neighbors urging Basha to blow the low life away in the film's most inventive scene.It would be nice to say this independently financed item was a break away from the blandness of funded filming here. However it is formula and lacks the dynamism of US films that covered this area - the work of Phil Karlson or young Scorsese and particularly American HISTORY X which appears to have inspired plot elements.Those involved attack with a determination that it would be nice to see rewarded with worthwhile careers but they have the dis-spiriting history of Astralian production against them.