MUGGERS

Australia, 1999, 95 minutes, Colour.
Jason Barry, Matt Day, Petra Jared, Nicola Charles, Chris Haywood, Caroline Gilmer.
Directed by Dean Murphy.

Muggers is a black comedy set in Melbourne. It focuses on two medical students and their hapless lives. They have some ambitions, but their studies and their lives are in a mess. They decide that they should try to hack into a computer to get answers for their exam - only to find they get information about an organ transplant market.

The film is farcical in tone, especially in its two central characters and their behaviour. Matt Day, veteran of a number of Australian films, is Brad, a promising student. Irish actor Jason Barry is more happy-go-lucky and leads Brad into all kinds of mischief and dangers. Chris Haywood plays Roy Rogers, the wheeler-dealer in organ transplants. Caroline Gilmer is Nurse Armstrong.

The film is amoral in its tone, in its portrait of the characters. However, when confronted by the moral issues of the organ market, they act in a kind of Robin Hood vein. The film was written and directed by Dean Murphy, who had made short films and television pilots and had released another film about two young friends, Lex and Rory.

1. The ironic aspects of Australian comedy? Larrikins? The black tone, amoral/moral comedy?

2. The use of the city of Melbourne, the streets, the universities, laboratories, classrooms? The world of studies? Flats and housing? The musical score?

3. The title, the muggers, Brad and Gregor and their mugging in a farcical manner as well as hijacking the organ trade? The social surgeons as muggers? The dealing in illegal transplant organs? The Robin Hood tone to the film?

4. The prologue, the introduction to the characters, their situations, the tone? Organs, illness, kidneys and transplants?

5. Brad and Gregor, their age, studies? Their lives in a mess? Hungry? Going to the lectures? Their not doing well in their studies? Nigel's attack on the professor? At home, the apartment, squalor and noise?

6. The film's comment about health, medicine, doctors? Legal situations, illegal?

7. The professor, Belinda, the computer? Hacking in? The professor and the organ deals?

8. The start, the Italian and sirens? Crawford and death?

9. Roy Rogers and his associates? The money? Sophie and the loan? The types, toughs? The hospital and Nurse Armstrong? The death, the taking of the organs, taking of the liver? The corpses?

10. The ambulance and the thugs, Nurse Armstrong, the pursuit and chase? The nurse and her buying?

11. The industry, the money, Brad and Gregor getting in on the act? The flat, the golf and Nigel? The professor and his permission about the exam? Roy Rogers?

12. Sophie, relationships, sexual encounter? The photos, pregnancy?

13. The professor, the promises, the issue of the liver?

14. The final fight, the police?

15. Brad and Gregor as personalities, their characters, their hopes, amoral tone? Moral judgments and behaviour? The irony of the dog eating the liver?

16. The entertainment value of farce and spoof, characters and satire?