Paul Goldman and Alice Bell's mockumentary "Suburban Mayhem" starts off with some measure of interest in its subjects' state of arrested development, but manages to fracture its focus into different pieces before it's through. The Aussie production does allude to its working class suburb's infant terrible syndrome, channeling the seminal "Romper Stomper" well enough by juggling murder, delinquency and a hefty pacing of sex, drugs and roll 'n' roll. However, setting the stage just doesn't cut it when the noxious characters woefully expose its wafer-thin plotting. Goldman's self-satisfied intentions are made clear enough and tacky dinner-table transgressions aside; the film's black comedy routine is merely discernible at best but it's just not particularly biting or droll. Katrina (Emily Barclay), its patricidal, chain-smoking femme fatale shoulders the film's best scenes despite the young character's tendency to regress into a badge for its director to smugly flash about as the latest and loudest provocateur of Australia's idyllic suburbia.
Review of Suburban Mayhem
