# Crocodile Dundee (1986)

### reviewed by
Steve Rhodes

    CROCODILE DUNDEE
    A film review by Steve Rhodes
    Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes

    RATING (0 TO ****):  ***

Paul Hogan as Michael J. "Crocodile" Dundee is an apolitical braggart and a generally loveable character - just the sort you'd want to hang out with if you had a trip into the Australian outback. He got his name from a little tangle he had with a hungry crocodile that got him some notoriety, but he calls it just a little love bite.

While on vacation, we watched the 1986 film CROCODILE DUNDEE appropriately in New York City, where the last half of this fish out of water tale is set.

Although an extremely popular movie that garnered an Academy Award nomination for its script by Hogan, John Cornell, and Ken Shadie, the people associated with it were not able to build on their success in the movie. Paul Hogan had few other movie roles of merit and was last seen in the odious FLIPPER remake. His female costar, Linda Kozlowski, never got another important role. The writers and the director, Peter Faiman, similarly disappeared into oblivion.

The story begins in Australia where New York reporter Sue Charlton (Kozlowski) looks up Mick Dundee from Walkabout Creek in the Northern Territories. Hearing about the reason for his Crocodile Dundee sobriquet, she wants to record his story.

Full of good hearted, simple humor like the time Crocodile Dundee tangles with a group of loud-mouth hunters who freeze "roos" (kangaroos) with their pickups' spotlights and then ruthlessly gun them down. He impersonates a kangaroo by hiding behind a kangaroo skin. Just before the hunters start firing, he fires first, almost scaring them to death.

Crocodile is totally at peace with nature, or as he puts it, "God and me, we'd be mates." His sidekick is an aboriginal city businessman who reluctantly dresses up in full body paint since his father's a tribal elder.

Sue takes Mick with her to Manhattan. Once there, he reaches out of his limo to greet a local, who is walking down a busy street. The incredulous New York native, who isn't used to strangers speaking, much less being friendly, is completely bewildered. In another incident Crocodile asks a local African-American, quite sincerely, what tribe he is from. Rather than have the guy take offence, the big-hearted picture has him be surprised and curious rather than insulted.

The innocence of this sweet little story is best seen when Crocodile finds something looking like a foot washer in the bathroom in his fancy midtown hotel room. Sue is simply too embarrassed to explain what a bidet is to her new friend. Embarrassment - that's a concept not often seen in today's movies.

CROCODILE DUNDEE runs 2:04. It is rated PG-13 for a brief scene of ridiculed drug usage and for a little profanity and would be fine for kids around 7 and up.

My son Jeffrey, age 9, liked the movie and gave it ** 1/2. His favorite is the classic big knife scene.

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