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Razorback: The Baker brothers
Title:
Razorback: The Baker brothers
NFSA ID
8258
Year
1984
The outback town of Gamulla is terrorised by a giant razorback boar. This clip opens at the site of Beth’s wrecked car, where Jake Cullen (Bill Kerr) senses his ‘old friend’ (the razorback) has returned. Jake is given a hostile reception by Benny Baker (Chris Haywood) and brother Dicko (David Argue) when he asks questions about Beth’s fate.
Like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, Jake Cullen is obsessed with hunting down the razorback. Given free reign by director Russell Mulcahy, David Argue and Chris Haywood portray the Baker brothers as a nightmare version of the Australian ‘ocker’ type. Often a loveable rogue, these ockers are the Antipodean cousins of the scary hillbilly and backwoods characters seen in American movies such as Deliverance (1972) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977, 2006). Benny and Dicko are as ‘feral’ as the creature Jake seeks to destroy.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.