Two Hands

     "Two Hands" was one of the last films of the 90's that made the Aussies proud. As I started watching it I expected a crappy film, probably because Heath Ledger reminds me of "Ten Things I Hate About You" too much, but the film turned out to be quite cool, and fortunately it doesn't have the problem so many films have nowdays: It actually had a good ending.

Jimmy (Heath Ledger) is a young man, probably in his early twnties, whose work consists in trying to convince the people who walk by to enter the place he works for, where there are naked women. Nice job. But apparently Jimmy doesn't want to have such a dull life, he wants to be 'someone', so when Pando (Bryan Brown), a local mob boss -Sydney, Australia- asks him to do a 'job' for him, Jimmy knows it's his chance to join the business.

Jimmy's task is to deliver some money to a custumer, but the stupidest thing happens: 2 kids steal the money while Jimmy's on the beach. Jimmy knows if Pando's men catch him, he dies, so he decides to rob a bank in order to recover the money, but Pando's men are looking for him, and he can't just tell them to wait for him to get the money. Some other important characters are Alex (Rose Byrne), a girl who Jimmy likes, and the two kids who robbed Jimmy's money in the first place.

The story is no big deal, but it was well written, and although it didn't have that many jokes, the ones it had were hilarious. Of course, this isn't entirely a comedy, but the black humor was great. As I stated earlier, Aussies are proud of this film, but I believe they were somewhat angry because everyone in the film was wearing thongs, even the mob boss Pando, I find that to be a funny fact actually.

I thought it was a great idea to have a narrator through most of this movie, it was Jimmy's deseased brother, Michael, who watches everything without being watched by others. As I also stated at the beggining of this review, the film actually has a good ending, something not too common nowdays. I won't say what happens, of course, but it's good, it's the kind of ending that doesn't make you angry and it doesn't go against what you want to happen. Great performances by every character, they were really good. Good story, acting, directing and a nice black humor, what else could you ask for? Try not to miss it.

Printable Version