Romper Stomper

Romper Stomper [1992]

Director: Geoffrey Wright
Actor: Russell Crowe

If this film would have been found credited on the credits of American History X, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all. Though definitely not the same movie, it deals with Neo Nazism and hate crimes.

Hando (Russel Crowe) is the head of the Melbourne skinhead faction fighting against the “Yellow Danger” – asian immigrants settling in Melbourne. He believes in the words of Adolf Hitler, and reads Mein Kampf like some read the bible.

When his favourite pub gets bought out by Vietnamese people, wanting to turn the bar into a restaurant, Hando and his crew declare war on the Vietnamese. They underestimate the ferociousness and tenacity with which the Vietnamese fight back and are forced to retreat back to their headquatres. The retreat doesn’t seem to be enough, and their HQ is trashed and burned by the enraged Vietnamese. The survivors of the fight lay low and start plotting a way to get revenge.

During all of this, Davey, Hando right hand man and best friend, finds himself falling in love with Hando’s girlfriend Gabe, a troubled girl with a history of serious drug use and the victim of incest at the hands of her wealthy father. As Hando gets more and more obsessed with revenge, Davey falls more and more in love with Gabe.

The film feels like it wants to go somewhere, wants to reach a point in the story, but constantly falls short and takes another direction. Too many loose ends and a pretty weak and shoddy plot keeps this film from being a mainstream film.

The rest of the movie is pretty good, though. Rough and quick editing, the fast cinematography. It’s all cut and put together pretty well.

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