"…. While Frontline sends up what I have always suspected its makers secretly admire, the smart alec, worldly wise cynicism of television current affairs journalism, The Castle defends what I suspect its makers secretly despise – the deeply conventional values of working-class Australian suburbia. Perhaps this is unfair. For all I know, the director Rob Sitch and his fellow creative teamsters – Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Jane Kennedy – by whom The Castle was "written and conceived", are all fervent and committed admirers of the great Aussie backyard, with its barbecues, pet greyhounds and happy family photos, all amply depicted in their film. But somehow The Castle doesn't leave that impression. Its message looks false and confused; and the reason, I think, is an attempt to do too much. ….. A really good script – and a much harder one to write – might have played all this fairly straight, with gentle humour, making no secret of its affections and sympathies. But The Castle is out to get laughs, and it gets them the wrong way: by making Darryl and his family into figures of fun. One moment we are asked to sympathise with their plight, in the next to sneer at their naive simple-mindedness…..It's a quaint, awkward film, with some good scenes, and just possibly it will be a hit, in which case a few critics will look silly. But the mixture of realism and wacky satire never really works. At least in The Castle we have no misgivings about the verdict. Right triumphs. Even judges and lawyers, as a character sheepishly admits, are made to look good."