A young couple, living in a campus apartment complex, are repeatedly harassed by an eccentric, Bob Dylanesque plumber, who subjects them to a series of bizarre mind games while making unnecessary repairs to their bathroom.For me, this may be Peter Weir's first really strong work. "Cars That Ate Paris" didn't resonate with me. I love "Picnic at Hanging Rock", but I assume it is very divisive -- the film is not for the general film-goer. But "Plumber" is very much a modern thriller, and in many ways very American. Aside from some accents, the story could have taken place anywhere in the English-speaking world.Others have noted how it can be seen as a precursor to "The Cable Guy". I can see that, and don't know if it's intentional or not. But I will say "Plumber" is more successful, at least for me. Jim Carrey's character was too dark, and ultimately turned me off to that film. Here, the plumber is creepy but never so dark that the comedy is forgotten.

Awful, awful film. It scores 6.6 on the IMDb. WHY?????????? It's terrible. And it's so dated too.The Plumber is supposed to be a horror. It isn't. Basically it's about an annoying plumber who messes up each job he goes to. In particular he visits a lady every day while her husband is a work.She's doing her chores; he's in the bathroom. And that is supposed to be a horror movie??? It would be a comedy if there was anything to laugh at.No scares. No terror. No nothing except a very poor script and awful acting.As someone mentioned it's like the outtakes from some horrific Aussie soap opera like Prisoner Cell Block H, all stitched together.Down-thumb this review all you like, it's still a horrific 1/10.

It's a formulaic film. An anthropology student, Morris, is trying to prepare her Master's thesis at home while her doctor husband is at work trying to earn a plum job that will take them to Switzerland. A plumber arrives and takes over the bathroom. She's alone with him all day, and, man, is he an oddball. He turns the bathroom into a junk yard, crashes through the ceiling, erects scaffolding that forms a maze between the doorway and the facilities.Meanwhile the plumber, Kants, is insinuating himself into Morris's life, an infiltrating tumor. She can't work. He keeps interrupting her with trays of tea and ugly biscuits. He claims to be a musician and plays some imitation Dylan for her. And -- is he joking about having spent time in prison? For rape? As is usual in these formula movies, either no one believes her strange tale or they minimize it. Morris's best friend, a man-hungry neighbor, thinks it's rather nice to have a husky guy around the house. The superintendent's wife thinks Kants is just a good-natured joker. The husband, absorbed by his problems at work, thinks Morris is misinterpreting things.Finally, in desperation, Morris frames the plumber for theft and he's hauled off screaming threats. The film ends with a pointless freeze frame of Morris looking down from a balcony high up in the apartment complex, African drums beating in the background.So what's up? It's cheap and generic but, knowing it was directed by Peter Weir, I wondered if there were more to it than just another woman in jep movie that ends in a cop out. It's a cop out because usually, the attempt to frame the threatening guy fails and must be followed by some violent act that indisputably identifies him as a madman. And usually he winds up dead, maybe impaled on some piece of his own plumbing. (Cf., "Pacific Heights.")I began by wondering if the name of the happily married couple -- the Cowpers -- was in itself a joke. (Cowper's gland; male plumbing.) That didn't get me very far. Then I wondered if Weir was deliberately trying to void the formula by having the wife frame the plumber when, in fact, he may be guilty of nothing more than social clumsiness, inferiority, and an ignorance of how to fix the bathroom pipes. That is, is there a subtext dealing with class issues.I spent some time mulling all this over before coming to a firm conclusion: I don't know. That's a typical assessment of Weir's intentions.Judy Morris, as Jill Cowper, is really perfect for the part. Not exactly pretty but very appealing and markedly feminine. She's skinny, has fluffy ash blond hair, and pale blue eyes behind her fragile spectacles. She wears dark turtle neck tops and slacks. A perfect academic. When she orders Kants to get out, her voice isn't convincingly firm but maybe it wasn't meant to be.Ivar Kants has the requisite obnoxious personality. He has an unfashionably large and curly hair style, talks to himself in the bathroom, keeps sticking his face into hers in a violation of all the rules regarding personal space. He's too close and too loud. The moral deadfall is that may be his greatest vice. Maybe he didn't deserve to be carried away screaming.The directorial touches are all subtle and hardly noticeable. Transitions from one scene to the next are often unusually fast fades to black, as if for commercials, which in this case may have been their purpose.Interesting variation on a particular genre, though. No doubt about it.

Hearing about this great little film from many people, I spent tireless hours on retail sites tracking a VHS copy down. Finally I caught a cheap copy on Half.com and it came several days later, (cut to one month later, when Weir's "Cars that Ate Paris" debuted on easily-accessible DVD format with "The Plumber" as a double feature. Go figure.) But I sat down to watch it and proceeded to laugh for quite some time.The story is basically about this Aussie anthropologist studying Aboriginal tribes as her boring nutritionist husband is constantly talking shop. She's constantly left to her solitude and values her privacy, which makes it all the more irritating when a strange plumber invades her life. Somewhat threatening and somewhat a misunderstood doof, this plumber spends hours holed up in her bathroom doing nothing but lounging around, hammering shower tiles, writing folk songs and ripping pipes from the walls.It's a precursor to "The Cable Guy," but don't let that discourage you, (I liked "Cable Guy" myself). It's funny as hell and has a great ending. I'll even forgive it for the nutritionist's ponderous subplot that goes nowhere. It's only 79 minutes--whaddaya got to lose?Movie: A