| The Dish |
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| Rating: Good Distributor: Dreamworks MPAA Rating: PG Release Date: March 14th, 2001 (limited), weeks later wider. Running Length: 1 hour, 37 minutes Genre: Drama, Historical Director: Rob Sitch Cast: Sam Neill, Patrick Warburton, Roy Billing, Billie Brown, Genevieve Mooy, Kevin Harrington, Tom Long, Tayler Kane, Eliza Szonert, and John McMartin. |
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| Plot: In July 1969, the Apollo 11 mission in which Neil Armstrong landed on the moon is about to take place. The conflict in this film however, is not the process of getting to the moon, but the process of trying to get it all telivised with a gigantic satellite dish. That dish is located in Parkes, Australia, in the middle of a sheep paddock. This film tells the story of the three people who worked the dish, and the NASA representative who helped them. It also tells the story of the lives of the people of that Parkes. |
| Critique: The Dish is warm and amiable, but can often feel insignificant. The dialogue is usually sharp, and interesting, and the storyline has its moments. Yet, the general conflict is difficult to be entertained by. I have respect for the people who worked hard in the dish to televise the important Apollo 11 event, but I don't care to watch a movie about them working the satellite dish. It's simply does not pass for entertainment in my book. The film is actually entertaining, only because it can save itself with its warm mood and intriguing characters. I merely didn't get a lot of enjoyment from the climax, and the conflict of fixing the satellite to work properly. The Dish is able to find something worth watching in individual moments of discussion and general character interplay. All in all there are pieces of enjoyable film, combining to make an end result that has enough entertainment to get my recommendation. My feeling is that the filmmakers knew there was not enough material to make a movie only on people working on a satellite dish. They knew it, otherwise they would not have had so much plot focusing on the tension of the upcoming Apollo 11 landing. There was no tension build up of televising the event on a dish. They could see the actual landing is a larger point of interest. The problem is that we've heard all those general facts of the Apollo 11 before. In fact, the filmmakers never really put anything specific, detailed, or new about the era and conflict. Whenever a scene comes up where working of the dish is involved, we are given no unique specifics and details. They merely use the cliched "well we could!..." (score goes on), or "I have an idea" (score goes on), and then say something utterly generic and simple sounding. I may be spending more time talking about the film's flaws, than I am spending talking about its strengths. That's because the flaws are a complex issue, and strengths are very simple. The film is warm, with relatively textured characters, and has enough entertainment to be worth seeing. That's it. Those strengths are strong enough to surpass the weaknesses, but there certainly are recognizable flaws. The Dish is basically well acted and enjoyable. I have some problems with it, and feel it could have been better. Nonetheless, this picture is above average, and it hits enough right notes. It's worth your time, just don't expect a masterpiece. It's an honest, warm film, with a nice era soundtrack. review by supernothingman |