REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:

   

GOODBYE PARADISE. Australia, 1982. Ray Barrett, Robyn Nevin, Guy Doleman, Lex Marinos, Paul Chubb, Janet Scrivener, and Carole Skinner. Written by Bob Ellis and Denny Lawrence. Directed by Carl Schultz. Released on DVD in Australia (Region 0.)

   Okay, drop what you’re doing, put down your book, stop watching whatever’s on TV and go out and find this. Watch it. Then watch it again. It’s that good.

   Ray Barrett (Australia’s Pat O’Brien) stars as a boozy ex-cop-turned-writer, on the verge of a major exposé when his book contract is pulled out from under him under pressure from above. Minutes later he’s summoned to the estate of an old friend, now a senator, who wants him to chase after his runaway daughter.

   What follows is a gaudy Technicolor echo of THE BIG SLEEP, THE GLASS KEY, FAREWELL MY LOVELY and DOUBLE INDEMNITY, with touches of BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN tossed in. And it works. Beautifully. Schultz’s graceful camera work is backed up by Ellis’ and Lawrence’s Chandleresque voice-over narration, read by Barrett with a wry shrug in his voice:

   “The winter’s sun was going down on Surfers Paradise. It was my 98th day on the wagon and didn’t feel any better than my 97th. I missed my hip-flask of Johnnie Walker, my ex-wife Jean, my pet dog Somare, and my exorbitant salary as deputy commissioner of police. I wasn’t sure any more I was cut out to be a writer of controversial exposés of police corruption. At the moment I couldn’t lift the lid off a can of baked beans.”

   Even better is the sense of feeling Schultz and his actors evoke. When Barrett meets up with an old friend or an ex-lover (as he does about every ten minutes) one gets the impression that they really care for each other, and the effect is to draw us even closer to the character and his goofball style.

   Schultz & co even extend this to the bad guys. Barrett finds an old buddy getting rich as a Hefner-style guru, bullshitting teenagers for a living, and the look he gives his old friend speaks a mega-series. Third-billed Guy Doleman turns up about two-thirds of the way through as a punctilious military type, and when his ramrod spine bends for a moment in reminiscence, the character achieves dimensions that make his later misdeeds somehow even more depraved.

   Throw in an icy doctor-for-hire, a few greedy politicians and brutal cops, some young space-cadets and a tour-guide pornographer and you have a cast as diverse and exotic as a Russian novel.

   And let me spoil one big surprise here. No, I’m not going to throw in a (SPOILER ALERT!) because this is too good not to share. There’s a moment here where a helpful suspect tells Barrett to come back tomorrow for a vital piece of evidence. And when Barrett does come back tomorrow, the helpful suspect is STILL ALIVE!

   This is ground-breaking!