Grievous Bodily Harm

Grievous Bodily Harm is admittedly one of my favorite Aussie films. I never get sick of it. It is a stylishly done film, with Waters in one of his undoubtedly best roles, as a teacher, infatuated with a beautiful woman, believed to be dead, only he doesn’t think so. In one scene, he loses it with a student which took me back to an incident, in a classroom, where my English teacher, kicked a kid out, for saying the F word, though didn’t resort to the excessive methods of Waters. Water’s character, just can’t let the past rest, resorting to murdering woman who won’t tell him where his sweet heart is. The other story to this story, is Friels, a hot shot journalist/best selling non fictional author. He’s the kind of journo who will break the rules to get the story, while even helping out police, here and there, like in one terrifying hostage situation. On his tale is a corrupt cop (Lawrence) who this time, might really be going down. See he believes Tom is keeping information from him, as well as a big bundle of cash, a criminal gave him, as in act of trust, before carking it. Lawrence becomes quite an important part near the end of the story, in a twist of disbelief to us audience, you could say, when he see what he ends up with. I like too, Friel’s cameraman, Kym Gyngell, who was doing a few films around this time. GBS is a very tightly constructed thriller, with all the right scenes in place. The movie chooses great locations in and around Sydney, while also choosing some really visually effective ones, out Blue Mountains way. We see too that this mystery woman, we hope we meet, was partaking in some saucy sex tapes, with another hottie (Lederman) who Waters takes care off, mercilessly and coldly. She was also escorting too. GBH is a slick thriller, with some good performances (Kerry Armstrong as Friel’s ex, and of course Lawrence as ‘bad cop’, Ray) who you’ll definitely remember after.