the tender hook and or and who kill the australian film industry . case no . 278. this sorry excuse for a period drama take a cast and idea with potential rise byrne and pia miranda and hugo weaving and in a jazz era gangster drama and turn it into a sloppily pace and execute soporific . mcheath ( weave ) be a boxing promoter and gangster and function illiterate while for no apparent reason he give to sing bob dylan and leonard cohen song before bout . how post modern . how stupid . anyway . there a boxer and art ( matthew le nevez ) and who become mcheath late protégé and over his unfortunately aboriginal stablemate alby ( luke carroll ) . mcheath flapper moll iris ( byrne ) make the goo goo eye at him . sexual tension squelch under the surface . miranda play daisy and a friend of iris ( these flower girl stick together ) who keep turn up in scene unannounced . they practice dance together and talk about hook up with guy . in the 1920s . i stop count anachronism after that . there a subplot involve japanese beer and a backstory of broome pearl fisherman . i do not know what it be all about . for some reason that be not exactly ( at all ) explain and byrne put cocaine in art lemonade . mcheath think he a drunk and sack him . byrne plot and scheme to help him out again . she a big one for the plotting and scheming . most of which cause trouble . mcheath two gunsels and portly ronnie ( john batchelor ) and russian donnie ( tyler coppin ) and debate bump off mcheath when he realise their part in one of iris scheme and but ronnie wimp out when he see mcheath cry . a lot of practically incoherent scene get in the road of the film finally end . director jonathan ogilvie spend a lot of time work with cinematographer geoffrey simpson create some pretty image and but utterly fail to generate a sense of style and which might have compensate for and decorate the wispy and pathetically underpowered script while unfortunately ogilvie sense of film grammar and the lack of structuring of the scene and exposition and be stunningly incompetent . in an early scene and daisy suddenly appear in the car with the protagonist . how she get there and and indeed who she be and seem to have slip ogilvie mind . there be many more example of this sloppiness . where he chase poetic sparseness and he achieve only wan irritation . he gain awkward performance from actor who be normally reliable and badly miscast weave and lean on byrne ability to project a kind of haunted doll like humanity whilst saddle her with an incomprehensible character . it might not matter so much if the story have more substantial character and strong plot preferably not steal from a dozen old noir film and festoon with witlessly sprinkle pop culture quote . but it doesn not . it bore .