The Wog Boy (2000)
Energetic but not enough to cover the lack of consistent laughs
27 July 2003
Steve is a Greek man living in Australia since his family emigrated there many years prior. Since being teased as a `Wog Boy' in school, he has decided to live a Wog boy and be proud of his heritage. A run in with the Minister for Education sees him portrayed on tv as a dole sponger, however, when he goes on the show to defend himself he comes off the better and becomes famous. The Minister employs Steve to help develop new policies on unemployment, but is that all she is after?

I was drawn to the film by the unusual title – it is not often you see a film that has a racist term in the title, and I assumed I could get all worked up about it in a Daily Mail type of way. Sadly for my middle-class rage, this film has so much self mocking energy that it is impossible to be offended by it. The downside of all this energy is that it doesn't manage to cover the fact that the film itself isn't actually very funny. The plot is, well, pointless, which leaves it only with ethnic stereotypes from which to draw it's humour.

These stereotypes are actually pretty funny at times, but I suggest this film will generally appeal to those who identified with My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Outside of these the film has little to do and fills it's time with shouting and hand waving to keep the energy high. I enjoyed watching it as I was coming off a bad day of food poisoning and needed something silly and energetic to raise my spirits but I must admit that I did notice that I wasn't actually laughing very much at all.

The cast are pretty good I guess, despite all being cartoon characters in one way or another. Giannopoulos is enjoyable as Steve and seems natural in the role, a side effect of writing it I suppose, but most of the rest fall into one ethnic stereotype or another.

Overall this has energy and is silly if that is what you want. If you have a background similar to these characters then you may get more from it. But it is hard not to notice just how few actual laughs there are in the 90 minutes.
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