Australia *** (2008, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Bryan Brown, Ray Barrett, Arthur Dignam, Bill Hunter, David Gulpilil, Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto, David Wenham) – Classic Movie Review 4526

Oscar-winner Nicole Kidman had to learn not only her lines but also how to be a feisty cowgirl and perform the most gruelling stunts for co-writer/ director Baz Luhrmann’s enjoyable old-style Outback romantic epic, the 2008 big Boxing Day treat at the movies.

Meanwhile her hunky and charming co-star Hugh Jackman (who replaced Russell Crowe) trained like a bodybuilder to bulk up his skinny frame play a drover (or livestock herder) and learned expert horse skills – he could barely ride before!

Kidman plays English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley, who inherits a ranch in northern Australia before World War Two and reluctantly takes Drover on to protect her new property from a takeover plot. The duo drive 2,000 cattle over harsh territory and suffer the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces.

Filming was ‘punishing’, according to the director, and took nine months, plus some re-shoots – apparently for a happy ending – late in 2008. It is good ­but not perhaps good enough. Film studio Twentieth Century Fox spent a $130 million fortune on it and was expecting it to outgross its 1997 blockbuster Titanic, but in the end it took only a feeble $49 million in the US, though it was popular elsewhere and took $211 million worldwide (UK gross just under £7 million). Maybe calling it Australia was a bad idea for American sales.

It helps that so many of the usual acting suspects are out in force, including Bryan Brown, Ray Barrett, Arthur Dignam, Bill Hunter, David Gulpilil, Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto and David Wenham.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4526

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com