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Bookmark this pagePetersen (1974)
Director: Tim Burstall
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Petersen (Thompson), another in the Alvin Purple brigade of Australian superstuds, is a peculiarly repulsive anti-hero who grunts his way acquiescently through various encounters and a baffling mish-mash of middle class observation and incident. The fact that the film has some well-observed moments (the script is by David Williamson) only makes its overall effect all the more inconsequential. We are whirled from the sterility of academic life, via the hypocrisy of marriage, to the crude vulnerability of a lower middle class party menaced by Hell's Angels. But each reasonable scene is promptly knocked on the head by idiotic drinking bouts and repulsive leers in the direction of women's lib, abortion, etc. The fact that the softcore sex is less tedious than usual remains something of an achievement in view of the hero's corpse-like demeanour.Author: DP
Cast & crew
Director: Tim Burstall
Producer: Tim Burstall
Cast: Jack Thompson, Jacki Weaver, Joey Hohenfels, Amanda Hunt, George Mallaby, Arthur Dignam, Wendy Hughes full cast
Duration: 107 mins
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