The Settlement (1984) Poster

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4/10
Life was slow in the olden days
PeterM2717 November 2021
Warning: Spoilers
This is a period film of three people who arrive in a Queensland country town in the 1950s: two unemployed men on foot carrying swags and a single woman looking for work. There appears to be a recession on as well as a shearer's strike, and the men are told there are no jobs in town and to move on.

They return to the bush and find an abandoned hut for some shelter. The single woman comes to help the older man who is sick from sleeping rough, and nurses him back to health. The three establish a friendship, and live together platonically for a while, but are eventually forced to move when the townsfolk, who see them as undesirable, burn down their hut and force them to move on. They consider separating, but eventually stick together, and make money by hustling gamblers at the boxing matches in the travelling shows.

On one hand, the film looks very old-fashioned and melodramatic. The dialogue is awkward and the story verges on cliché. However a number of good performances make it slightly believable and strangely watchable, despite its dramatic shortcomings. Bill Kerr as the older man, and Tony Barry as the policeman are particularly good, while John Jarratt as the younger man and Lorna Lesley as the cheery young woman are also good. Other characters in the film are more caricatures.

Overall, it's pretty dull though, with just a few good moments.
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8/10
80's Aussie film, one of inspiration
videorama-759-85939114 November 2013
This movie may not sound much, judging by it's title, story, and video cover, but you are really mislead here. Here's another case, of 'Give this movie a chance'. A down on their luck, duo, the great Bill Kerr, and his younger cohort, a much innocent John Jarratt, way before his killing days as Mick Taylor in the Wolf Creeks, have just swaggered on into town at the dislike of the locals, including chief cop (Tony Barry). They're swindlers running card games, and playing pool, these hobos have to make it somehow, where they're soon run out of town. So what they do? They settle, out of town. Luck comes their way, not just in the form of a nicely shaped, young floosy/barmaid (Liddy Clark) who befriends them, but they come across an abandoned ramshackled hut, they now call home, after giving it a makeover, where we have one nice cosy family. Certain romances blossom within this group, too, but the locals aren't amused, and become really fired up, and you can pretty much guess the unfolding of the story-I mean you're not that dumb. This is one of those fine overlooked Aussie films, with Kerr, great, who's still with us, (obviously he looks after himself, wisely, as seen in a lot of his characters, he plays. Jarratt, the short fused one, has a cute idiocy about him, and makes the film, fun to watch. You'll see why he's one the underrated Aussie actors. I loved the young teen girl, trying to come onto cop (Barry) in the pub, paying him out. This film has much the same end as High Rolling with our three down on their luck souls, walking off, proving when you're back on the bottom again, you just have to get back up again, and not look back.
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8/10
Great Aussie Film
Michael_Grech1 September 2005
Warning: Spoilers
This is a real old fashioned Aussie classic. I first saw it one night when I was bored. A friend left the DVD at my place and although it didn't look interesting, I put it on thinking that I would watch about 10 minutes but I ended up watching it right to the end. It basically tells the tale of two male drifters who come to a small country town. They meet a woman with a bad reputation and they both fall in love with her.

After realising that they both want her and that neither of them is prepared to back down, she simply decides to share her love between them both. The locals are gossiping about them however they refuse to be concerned what others think and they follow their own interests.

There are better Aussie films, but I think The Settlement is worth watching.
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