Fast Talking

Fast Talking belongs with a popular genre in 80s Australian film - the dysfunctional teen drama.

Shot on 16mm with a small budget, Cameron's semi-realist film, set in the dire working class industrial suburbs of Botany near Sydney Airport, depicts the usual world of broken homes, physical abuse, petty crime and so on, a breeding ground for trouble, something for which fifteen-year old punk, Steve Carson (Rod Zuanic), has an uncommon flair.

Little more than a piecing together of Steve's anti-social adventures there are no surprises here although Cameron, a one-time schoolteacher, does give his subject-matter an under-stated and empathetic treatment with a winning performance by 16-year old Zuanic (who has since had a patchy film and television career but is probably best known as Scrooloose in the third Mad Max movie) and Steve Bisley in characteristically hard-nosed form as the bike mechanic who befriends him. Hit band of the time, The Eurogliders appear, giving the film, along with Tracy Mann's wardrobe and the awful hairdos, strong time capsule value.

 

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