Australiens (2014)

I've said some harsh things about some of those micro-budgeted direct-to-streaming movies that seem to pop up everywhere these days.  Many of them are would be horror films and the overwhelming majority that it has been my misfortune to sit through are shoddily made and atrociously acted.  They are invariably derivative, but not in a positive way, with ambitions that far outstrip their resources.  In short, most of them are absolute shite, home movies with ideas above their station, that should never have seen the light of day.  Recently, however, I saw one that I actually enjoyed.  Australiens (2014), as its title implies, is an Australian alien invasion movie, which belies its tiny budget with some very impressive-looking production values and effects work.  Despite an ambitious scenario - a full-scale alien invasion - it wisely opts to focus on a small group of characters who seem, for reasons which become clearer as the plot unfolds, are intimately linked to the invasion.  Equally wisely, it plays out as a more than slightly surreal comedy, as it becomes clear that Australia is the only country that has been attacked (except for Tasmania, which is left unscathed), much to the chagrin of the USA, which takes the aliens' failure to recognise them as the earth's predominant power personally, refusing the Australians any assistance.  Much of the humour relies upon a series of running gags, most set up early, like the apparently charmed status of Tasmania, one character's propensity for being mistakenly shot every so often, amongst others.  These gags are very well maintained throughout the movie's running-time, with a couple of them providing the film's closing punchlines.

The movie also derives much of its humour from the ever-evolving plot, which is continually throwing up new, out-of-left-field developments, which completely change the story's direction, whilst still advancing the main plot.  In this aspect, it effectively parodies conspiracy theories, whose adherents, when presented with concrete evidence that contradicts their belief system, suddenly pull some other bizarre idea out of their arses in order to distract attention from these anomalies.  Hence, we have the lead character's father suddenly revealing that he's a retired Australian secret agent who had been involved in investigating earlier alien incursions, but later revealing that he, himself, is an alien, in order to explain how he knows so much about the invaders.  The dawning realisation of the main characters that they somehow sit at the centre of the invasion, further parodies the conspiracy mindset, with adherents of conspiracy theories always thinking that they are somehow special and the guardians of the real truth.  Overall, the film is very professionally made, with some good comic performances from the cast, bringing to life its roster of deeply flawed, but ultimately quite likeable, characters.  Unlike many would be low-budget parodies, Australiens successfully lands most of its comic punches - it probably helps that, culturally, British and Australian humour don't sit too far apart, so I could get most of the references in the gags.  As I say, Australiens is actually a pretty entertaining movie, head and shoulders above most of the micro-budgeted dross currently cluttering up the lower levels of steaming services.  It actually looks and feels like an actual film, not a home movie escaped into the wild.