The Castle
"We're goin' ta Bonnie Dooooon..."
The Castle is a 1997 Australian film focusing on an ordinary family of "Aussie battlers" who live next door to an international airport. Their life is turned upside-down when the government tries to force them out of their house, but the family stands their ground and fights it both in and out of the courts.
Regarded by many to be the greatest Australian comedy film ever made, thanks to its endlessly quotable catch phrases and heartwarming story. The dialogue is heavy on Australian expressions, colloquialisms and cultural references. A partially redubbed version replaces some of the dialogue with Americanized expressions.
The film focuses on the close-knit Kerrigan family, made up of a mother and father and their four adult kids (and one son-in-law).
- Darryl Kerrigan (Michael Caton): The Patriarch, a down-to-earth tow truck driver and family man. Hobbies include greyhound racing and home improvement.
- Sal Kerrigan (Anne Tenney): loving mum and fantastic cook (at least in Darryl's eyes). A fan of arts and crafts.
- Wayne Kerrigan (Wayne Hope): The Quiet One who is serving a prison term for armed robbery. The only downer in the Kerrigans' otherwise idyllic life.
- Steve Kerrigan (Anthony Simcoe): The older brother whose main pastime is reading the Trading Post (a popular classified ads paper) for good deals on useful junk. Evidently inherited the DIY gene from his dad, because he has a knack for inventing things around the home. He's an ideas man.
- Dale Kerrigan (Stephen Curry): the Narrator of the story, prone to redundantly narrating the obvious in his narration. Likes digging holes.
- Tracey Kerrigan (Sophie Lee): Daddy's Girl, a certified hairdresser. Once featured as a contestant on the Australian version of The Price Is Right.
- Con Petropelous (Eric Bana): an accountant, and a fanatical kickboxer who is newly married to Tracey. This was Eric Bana's first cinematic role, and even here he was kicking arse!
The Kerrigans are informed that an airport consortium is buying them out to make way for a new freight terminal. Darryl can't believe that the law can allow such a thing. "A man's home is his castle!" However, the legal doctrine of compulsory acquisition (aka compulsory purchase, or eminent domain) says they have no choice in the matter.
Darryl decides to fight the compulsory acquisition with the support of his neighbours. He enlists the help of his small-time suburban lawyer Dennis Denuto (Tiriel Mora), whom he has complete faith in, but Dennis's inexperience in the courtroom almost spoils the case. To make matters worse, the unseen and powerful consortium backing the project make very clear they are going to get their way, whether by the book or by resorting to threats and intimidation.
Just when all seems to be lost, Darryl strikes up a chat with Lawrence Hammill (played by the venerable late actor Charles "Bud" Tingwell), who happens to be an retired Queen's Counsel experienced in the area of Constitutional law. Lawrence offers to help Darryl take his case all the way to the highest court in Australia...and the rest is history.
Not to be confused with American murder-mystery series Castle, or the novel The Castle by Franz Kafka.
- Amoral Attorney: there are a few that pop up as the defence counsel. A particularly intimidating one comes around to Dennis's office and tries to get him to persuade Darryl to settle the case.
- Berserk Button: In one of the court scenes, the opposing lawyer refers to the Kerrigans' home as a 'dwelling' in a tone of voice that makes it clear that he's using the most courtroom-acceptable term he can think of for it. Darryl hotly rebuts that if there were more homes like his- and the opposing lawyer cuts him off and says that if there were, the jails would be full of people like his son. Darryl goes berserk and the judge tells the opposing lawyer to stop being a dick.
- Book Ends: "My name is Dale Kerrigan, and this is my story..."
- Brick Joke: Dale mentions in his narration that sometimes when he's feeling happy, he thinks about his brother in jail and gets sad. In a later scene, he walks in on a heartwarming moment and smiles, then suddenly looks sad.
- Buffy-Speak: "Dad, you haven’t let anyone down. I don’t know what the opposite of letting someone down is... but you've done... the opposite."
- Catch Phrase: "Tell him he's dreamin'!" (Darryl's advice to Steve whenever a Trading Post seller's asking price is too high)
- "This is going straight to the pool room!"
- "How's the serenity?" (*bug fried by zapper*/*plane flies overhead*/*motorboat zooms past*)
- Cluster F-Bomb: The movie's loaded with them. Especially whenever Dennis has to deal with his photocopier.
- Consolation Prize: Tracey doesn't go home empty handed from The Price Is Right. "She still managed to come home with a tumble-dryer and drill set!"
- Contemplate Our Navels: Darryl loves to stand in his yard and marvel at such wonders as television aerials and power lines. "A testament to man's ability to generate electricity."
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: implied to be the antagonists but never shown on screen. All we know is that they're called the "Barlow Group" and they're comprised of some of the richest and most powerful men in the country. They deal with the main characters exclusively with through letters and lawyers.
- David Versus Goliath
- Defictionalization: The phrase "it's the vibe" is, without (too much) irony, used in modern Australian courtrooms to denote an argument that has not so much basis in law, but very good policy arguments for it.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The whole parallel between Darryl's struggle and Aboriginal land rights.
- Fifteen Minutes of Fame: "Mum reckons its funny how one day you're not famous, and then the next day you are. Famous. And then you're not again."
- Funny Foreigner: Farouk, Darryl's very Arab neighbour.
"He say plane fly overhead, drop value. I no care. In Beirut, plane fly over head, drop bomb. I like these planes better."
"You have friend, I have friend. My friend go to your house, put bomb under your car and blow you to fucking sky!"
- Happily Ever After
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Tony Martin (host of Get This) appears in a split-second cameo as Bud Tingwell's son. Along with Martin, many of the cast have been involved in projects by the film's production company, Working Dog Productions.
- It's the Principle of the Thing: most ordinary people would have taken the money, but Darryl risks everything he's got on his convictions. As Sal relates in the story of how they met, Darryl's principled and chivalrous behaviour are what attracted her to him in the first place.
- Land Down Under: of course, but The Castle is probably a hundred times more genuine to the Aussie way of life than Crocodile Dundee.
- No Budget: The film has been rumoured to have an astronomically small budget (less than $20,000), although the accepted figure is closer to $100,000. Either way, they shot the entire thing over 11 days to save on the catering bill, and renamed the main family so they could use real tow trucks borrowed from a business called "Kerrigans Towing".
- Metaphorgotten: "It's the vibe!"
- Mr. Fixit: Steve invents such wonders as the "motorcycle helmet with brake light in the back" and the "cleaning brush with a hose attached".
- Not in My Back Yard: The entire movie is an inversion of this trope. The Kerrigans live a few hundred metres from an airport runway. Massive power lines pass right over their backyard. And the Kerrigans love it that way.
- Odd Friendship: Darryl and Lawrence, who couldn't come from more different origins regarding class or education but eventually bond over their love of family and fishing.
- Lawrence and Dennis provide an interesting contrast too - Lawrence's background is top flight "big picture law", while Dennis has always handled bread-and-butter legal work like wills and conveyancing. And he can't read Roman numerals.
- Running Gag: The reason the movie's Catch Phrases are so memorable.
Dale: "Dad? I dug another hole."
- Trophy Room: The "pool room" is where Darryl keeps his greyhound trophies, family photos and cherished gifts. If he truly appreciates something, he declares it will go "straight to the pool room."
- Shown Their Work: The power of compulsory acquisition is a genuine Constitutional power in Australia. The characters cite real-life Constitutional law cases as both sources of inspiration and in courtroom argument. In addition, Darryl's case follows the correct hierarchy of appeals for decisions made under federal power (Administrative Appeals Tribunal; Federal Court; High Court on a question of Constitutional law). The film is often taught in Australian high school classes on Legal Studies because of its constitutional themes.
- Self-Deprecation: Portrays typical lower-class Australians as being moronic, simple, naive, racially ignorant and politically incorrect. Australians love it.
- Although the Kerrigans are racially ignorant, ignorance is repeatedly shown to be correctible - Daryl learns a little Greek to talk to his in-laws and comes to a deeper understanding of the Native Title issue as a result of his struggles in the film.
- Shout-Out: to iconic Aussie TV shows Hey Hey It's Saturday and The Price Is Right. Both were still on the air at the time.
- The Danza: Wayne Hope as Wayne Kerrigan.
- There Is No Higher Court: Averted. Darryl's decision is appealed all the way up to the Australian High Court.
- Two Decades Behind: despite being made in the late 1990s, you could swear the characters are stuck in the 80s. One character even uses a typewriter! (See No Budget.)
- Where Are They Now? Epilogue: Doubles as the Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
- You Fail Law Forever: Averted for most of the film. Only during Lawrence's Rousing Speech to the High Court do we get a break from reality, and an appeal to emotion - that even fair monetary compensation can never be "just terms" for the acquisition of your cherished family home and its irreplaceable value. Unfortunately, that's taking things a little too literally. in Real Life money is basically regarded as the best form of compensation under the law.