Rolf de Heer’s THE KING IS DEAD plays like a dark riff on The Castle and will resonate with anyone who has anything to do with being a resident and coping with nasty neighbours.

Max, science teacher, and Therese, tax accountant, buy a house in a seemingly quiet leafy suburban street. A light and airy dwelling close to public transport and with off street parking they think they have found their dream house.

They move in, finding a nice family on one side and, what they brand “interesting” on the other. But interesting soon becomes loud, and loud soon becomes intolerable and when the intolerable becomes the violent, and the police are powerless to do anything, and the community lawyer suggests ear plugs, Max and Therese are forced to try and solve the problem of the nightmare neighbour from hell themselves…and end up with a corpse on their hands.

But wait, there’s more, even that’s not the worst of it, because the corpse has friends…and even worse, enemies…the cadaver owes cash and it’s a case of till debt do us part, paid in full with interest.

Fresh from her supporting Something About Maryesque role in UNSUITABLE FOR CHILDREN, Bojana Novakovic plays Therese to Dan Wylie’s Max, a couple whose patience and tolerance is whittled away by the Neanderthal neighbours comprising Luke Ford, Anthony Hayes and Gary Waddell who plays the titular King, an ice addled old duffer who allows his property to be a venue for vice and violence.

Waddle is a wonder, making a detestable character sympathetic, a cinematic cousin of David Wenham’s Johnny Spitieri in GETTIN’ SQUARE.

Indeed, THE KING IS DEAD is, in bloodline parlance, GETTIN’ SQUARE out of THE CASTLE, and deserves a fair go at your local neighbourhood multiplex.

(C) Richard Cotter

11th July, 2012

Tags: Sydney Movie Reviews- THE KING IS DEAD, Rolf de Heer, Bojana Novakovic, Dan Wylie, Luke Ford, Anthony Hayes, Gary Waddell, Sydney Arts Guide, Richard Cotter