Herald rating: * * *
Running time: 95 mins
Rental: From today
Review: Ewam McDonald
Steve likes Celia the moment they meet. But when his Monaro (number plate: WOGBOY — he's a Greek Australian) nudges her boss' limo, his street-smart life in Melbourne starts to fall apart.
For Celia's boss is Raelene Beagle-Thorpe, the
Employment Minister, and Steve is about to find himself on national tele-vision, branded Australia's biggest dole-bludger by one of our great exports to the Lucky Country, TV muckraker Derryn Hinch.
To keep Celia, Steve has to prove to her and the country that he's not so much out-of-work as having a longish breather between jobs.
And at the same time he's trying to keep his best friend Frank away from Annie, Celia's little sister; protect Frank's cousin Dom from Tony, the local crime lord-nutter to whom Dom owes money; prevent his neighbour Theo from throwing himself in front of a car to collect insurance, and ... so on.
Writer-actor Nick Giannopoulos' comedy is been cobbled together from three plays that tell of his experiences in Australia's multi-cultural melting-pot.
The Wog Boy has funny moments that remind of that other recent broad-brush Aussie comedy, The Castle, but scratch it and you'll find an altogether more serious and nicely etched layer of satire and self-awareness.
