It's out of bounds and scoreless

Trying: Oliver Ackland misses the bounce in Blinder. Source: Supplied

MOVIE REVIEW: Two Australian sports movies in successive weeks? Who thought that would ever happen?

Oh, it's happened all right. But how long will it take to forget them? Hopefully, less than a fortnight.

Though the Australian Rules-themed Blinder doesn't plumb the same disastrous depths as the dreadful cricket comedy Save Your Legs!, it is still a sub-standard effort on most fronts.

Goals are few and far between. A staggering number of rushed behinds is the only score posted: the only result possible for a poorly-conceived tale that often goes out of bounds on the full.

The film tracks the fictional exploits of the Torquay Tigers, a real-life footy team on Victoria's southwest coast.

Some tacky, flashbacky business in the film's first quarter reveals the Tiges' 2003 premiership squad imploded when several players were implicated in a sex scandal involving a 15-year-old girl.

Due to some very strange scripting - it is very hard to tell if it is blatantly misogynistic or just plain ignorant - Blinder spends a lot of time reminding us this school-uniformed Jezebel ruined the careers of some sure-fire AFL superstars.

Here's your message, folks: never mind the law has been broken and a young woman has been sadly taken advantage of. These blokes could have been the next Wayne Carey! Statutory rape? What about the AFL draft?

Extract this seedy-silly sub-plot from proceedings - it is bloody hard to do so, I can tell you - and there's still a shuffling cavalcade of zombie-like characters to contend with.

All the fellas are knockabout simpletons. The women are docile doormats. Don't get me started on living legend Jack Thompson's lifeless performance as the lads' coach.

Hardcore footy heads who have dared read this far will want to know if there's any decent on-field action at the very least. The truth lies somewhere between maybe (if your eyesight's poor, or you've had a few) and no (if you've seen an Aussie Rules game of any standard in the past decade).

Most of the featured actors have very rudimentary kicking skills, which kills the illusion they're supposedly drawing talent scouts like flies.

These very average gameday sequences drag on far too long, pushing Blinder close to the two-hour mark before the siren mercifully sounds.

But not before that much-maligned schoolgirl - you remember her, don't you? - unbelievably reappears as the grown-up love interest of the film's "hero".

Should have been booked for trial-by-straight-to-video.

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Blinder [M]

Rating: 1.5/5

Director: Richard Gray (Summer Coda)

Starring: Oliver Ackland, Jack Thompson, Josh Helman, Angus Sampson, Anna Hutchison, Rose McIver

"Needs a free kick ... in the pants"

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