The Castle
directed by Rob Sitch
Starring Mike Caton, Anne Tenney, Tirel Mora
Australian
Darryl Carrigan, Australia’s best tow truck driver, has built his house and home with hard work and shrewd bargaining. Darryl has the relentless positive attitude so important when you’re as dumb a rusty hammer. He’s the sort of guy who enjoys looking at power transmission towers because they remind him of Man’s Ability to Generate Electricity. When the airport authority wants to take his ramshackle castle and turn it into the biggest freight terminal in the southern Hemisphere, he’ll not take it sitting down. No way. He scrapes up $700 from his neighbors and hires Danny DeNuddo (Tirel Mora) to fight for him in this ground-breaking constitutional issue. Wishing desperately to be somewhere else, Danny argues the airport ought to get stuffed, based on “Vibe” of the constitution. Amazingly, this works, but only at the Supreme Court, showing the Aussies have the same judicial problems we have here. Case closed, instant 15 minutes of celebrity, and Darryl gets to stay.
While not a promising plot, Rob Sitch and crew put together a funny but never sappy story of a small man’s triumph against the uncaring system. Darryl and his family are played with the right mix of sincerity and stupidity, and Tirel Mora gives the best performance of the film as the in-over-his-head lawyer, learning Roman numerals while he defends his first-ever constitutional case. Remember – the faster you go, the more you’ll see. That’s Darryl’s motto, and I may adopt it as my own.
