Glad I ran into part of this movie on TV and enjoyed enough of what I saw to stop and get the entire movie to watch. It's a romp in that some segments are a bit cartoonish and comic in nature and the violence in it isn't anything emotionally jarring or tramautic.Fans of Pierce and Edgerton will probably watch this while going through their catalog of films and I think they won't be displeased although my favorite character was the sausage making good-natured and lovable 3rd brother Mal played by Damien Richardson.For those still skeptical, just give it a watch and see if it doesn't catch you in the first 20 or so minutes.

If you watch The Hard Word expecting yet another heist/caper flick in the vein of The Bank Job, you're going to be frustrated. At first, the film feels like it's all setup, with no payoff. Then you realize: this IS the film. It's not about some sort of grandiose criminal scheme. It's about these *people,* and their very individual outlook on life. And on that basis, it's really quite brilliant.The three brothers each have their own peculiar point of view. There's the tough guy (Pearce), the oddball (who strikes up an out-of-the-blue love affair with his prison counselor), and the soulful butcher (who gleefully slaughters pigs, but wouldn't hurt a fly). Then there's Frank: the criminal jerk who just can't seen anything but the next big score, and thinks he can manipulate everyone. And, right in the middle, Rachel Griffiths' character -- a somewhat unwilling and perhaps incompetent femme fatale.There's plenty of action in the film, including a climactic heist, but these events are surprisingly low-key. The movie isn't about who gets away with how much. It's just as much about blood sausage, and unusual uses for a lava lamp, and sticking things in a cow, and a dyslexic hit-man... a whole string of strange events that might have been enough for several movies.I found myself puzzled by the film at first, then swept along by its endless stream of remarkable occurrences. And, in the end, I became absolutely enchanted by the three incorrigible brothers, and their optimistic motto: "Nobody gets hurt." The ending, when it arrived, was exactly what I was by then hoping it would be. It left me with a big grin that took hours to wear off.Don't go into this expecting a down under version of Ocean's 11. This is much more like The Ice Harvest, or Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead -- a sort of existentialist film noir fable. And a pure delight, provided you're in a receptive frame of mind.

This Aussie crime caper starts promisingly. It introduces an offbeat cast of villains, a clinically-executed heist and a foul smell of duplicity emanating from our heroes' slick lawyer, Frank, aka the world's shiftiest man. So far so 'Lock-Stock', but the film fails to live up to these early expectations.All apparent intricacies within the plot are then swiftly abandoned. Frank, it transpires, is a very bad man indeed, just as our hero-criminals are rather good-humoured, decent sorts. And so our three goodies (Dale, Shane and Mal) go off to work for baddie Frank, knowing full well that he's a baddie and don't seem too astonished when Frank rips them off, stealing their $10 million and Dale's wife. Eventually everyone gets fed up with Frank, and in a truly bizarre final scene, they turn him into a sausage.The underlying flaw in the film is that it fails to explore the characters or situations in a new or interesting way. Furthermore, there is no suspense after the first hour - the tension seems to decrease as the film progresses. And although the brothers interact very entertainingly, we learn next to nothing about their lives together, making it hard to empathise with them, or to feel that they even deserve their final happy end.

The Hard Word is the result of what happens when you take a bunch of OK ideas, string them together and just hope the rest falls into place. Unfortunately it doesn't. the film tries to be a character driven piece, but never bothers developing its characters. This film is hard to connect with. At no point does it actively engage its audience. A bunch of stuff happens, but you just don't care.The script is second rate at best. More often than not, trite contrivances drive the story and characters do completely illogical things (often going out of their way to do so) for no reason. I've heard more better conceived and more logical storylines from my 6 year old nephew. Half the characters could easily be written out of the film without affecting the film in any negative way (take Rachel Griffiths character; half her involvement in the film seems like an afterthought - something they came up with when the producers realised they had a "real" actress on board).Acting is a highly mixed bag. Most of the characters aren't too bad, but some are awful. The character "Frank" had the worst timing for delivering lines I've ever come across in a major character. Many of the extras or minor characters are crap.A poorly directed mess, which at the same time is not unwatchable. wait until it's on TV, or if you're really keen to see it video. Certainly not worth the time or money on the big screen. 4/10