The Bet (2006)

Will (Matt Newton), a young Sydney stockbroker, makes a friendly bet with his banker buddy Angus (Aden Young) over who will make more money in 90 days with 50K starting point. Will comes from a working class background and feels he has something to prove to the born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Angus. Adjudicating the bet is their mutual friend, Benno (Tim Richards) who gives Will a bit of a push in the guise of some insider trading (‘If I were you I’d keep an eye on such and such pharmaceutical company’ etc).  Will’s new girlfriend, Tory (Sibylla Budd) is not amused especially since as a lawyer, she’s involved in the business affairs of that same pharmaceutical company.

With a plot like that, I was expecting something along the lines of The Bank or at least, Risk, two good Aussie corporate thrillers. Wrong. 

From the simple and promising opening premise, the plot evolves into an increasingly tedious collection of twists, most of which made little sense to me, partly because my knowledge of (and interest in) the stock market is rather lacking. Corporate takeover, shares plummeting, buy/sell ….yawn, yawn, yawn.

Characters are all shallow bores, inhibiting their shallow little world of yuppie pubs, harbour apartments and high class strip joints. I am aware that that Sydney exists but it ain’t the city I know, nor do I care to.

All along, the stylish cinematography is continually punctuated by a pointless counter of the days passed in the bet and an annoyingly intrusive violin score.

Worst of all, in the end, The Bet turns out to be more of a drama (a boring one in which I don’t care in the least about what happens to the protagonists) than a thriller, which was not what I signed up for.

Bashing our film industry has become a bit of a sport lately and I am not interested in indulging in it. I have always supported local films, passionately and indiscriminately back in the late 90s (when I actually entertained crazy notions of becoming a filmmaker myself), much less so a decade on. My enthusiasm has slowly wanned, lessened by too frequent disappointments (see this review) and too infrequent elations (Romulus, My Father). But, I will keep watching and will keep supporting, it’s my one concession to blind patriotism.

Meanwhile, I suggest you give The Bet a pass and check out these movies, still fondly remembered by me from my teenage love affair with Australian films: Doing Time for Patsy Cline (1997), Kiss or Kill (1997), Thank God He Met Lizzie (1997), Love And Other Catastrophes (1996), Children Of The Revolution (1996)…