Angelo D'Angelo Movies

The husband and wife team of Nadia Tass and David Parker concocted this charming teen comedy concerning a disappointing birthday present. Ben Mendelsohn plays Danny Clark, a shy 18-year old who only wants two things out of life: to go out with Joanna (Claudia Karvan) and to own a sleek new Jaguar. When Danny's father Desmond (Marshall Napier) comes through with a birthday gift for Danny, it's a car but it's not what Danny had hoped for --it is the family's old 1963 Nissan Cedric. Disappointed, Danny decides to trade the car in for a 1973 Jaguar before he goes out on his first date. Danny makes a deal with sleazy car dealer Gordon Farkes (Steve Bisley) for the 1973 Jaguar -- but Farkes switches engines on poor Danny. While Farkes is having a good time at a sex club, Danny decides to retaliate by gathering together a few of his friends to help him steal the engine from Farkes' Jaguar. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

The ugly American bullying his way through a foreign country was a subject for comedy in several films of the 1980s, most notably Bill Forsyth's Local Hero and this film from exiled Yugoslavian director Dusan Makavejev. Eric Roberts plays Becker, an aggressive marketing executive for the Coca-Cola Company; he has been assigned to figure out why sales in hot and dry Australia aren't higher. Becker comes up against a low-key but formidable adversary, T. George McDowell (Bill Kerr), whose homegrown soda has cornered the market in his little corner of the country. Complicating matters is Terri, a local woman (Greta Scacchi) Becker hires as his secretary; she's McDowell's daughter and a single mom who's romantically attracted to the brash American. Becker wants to make a deal on his (and his employer's) terms, but he finds himself falling prey to the charms of life Down Under and the ministrations of Terri. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi