Yes, ‘The Dish’ is one of ‘those movies.’ Every few months a feel-good film set in a small town where people speak English, but not American English, seems to come out and get touted as ‘the next ‘Full Monty.” While not quite ‘Monty’ good, ‘The Dish’ is superior to most of the feel-good fluff that’s been flown in from over seas since, and vastly superior to what passes for feel-good in America (‘Patch Adams’ and ‘As Good As It Gets,’ anyone?). In a world where the term ‘feel-good’ generally translates to ‘just don’t step in it,’ ‘The Dish’ is a thoroughly enjoyable little film with a great cast that actually treats the audience with respect and gives them a few things to laugh at in the process.
Loosely based on a true story, ‘The Dish’ takes place in small-town Australia, where, in the middle of a sheep paddock, exists one of the largest satellite dishes in the Southern Hemisphere. NASA is gearing up for the first moon landing and finds out about the dish. Realizing its usefulness, they enlist the help of some Australian radio astronomers led by Sam Neill (‘Jurassic Park’) to relay the television signal sent by the space ship. They also send along a NASA technician (Patrick Warburton, ‘Seinfeld’) to oversee everything. That is the basic plot. It would not spoil anything to say that they have their share of complications along the way, and at the end it becomes a ‘triumph of the human spirit’ or whatever. Despite the uplifting and not overly revolutionary plot, the film never turns too sappy.
Director Rob Sitch along with his writing team, who were previously responsible for the enjoyably silly ‘The Castle,’ have once again created a memorable cast of characters. The film is about more than just the dish and its operators. It’s about the small town where the dish is located. There’s a mayor, a band, the children, the wacky neighbors and so on; but rather than just have a wealth of cardboard cut-outs, Sitch and company have done a great job fleshing out the characters, creating a truly unique group of townspeople. The key to a feel good film’s success is lies in actually getting the audience to care about the characters, and the characters in ‘The Dish’ give the audience plenty to care about. Along with supplying some great comic moments, the cast is all very strong, and manages to display the subtlety necessary to pull off some of the more outlandish moments.
The film isn’t perfect. For example, there is a framing sequence featuring an old Sam Neill revisiting the dish that borders on a being a bit much. But for all the moments that do not work, there are more than enough that do. Additionally, ‘The Dish’ has a fantastic soundtrack full of late `60s rock. The film opens with ‘Good Morning Starshine’ from ‘Hair’ and it features other great songs that really capture the music that defined the decade. There is also a classic sequence which features the theme from ‘Hawaii Five-O.’
Like ‘The Castle,’ ‘The Dish’ is a lightweight film that actually succeeds in floating. The sight of the massive dish is breathtaking, and the film paints an interesting portrait of a part of the moon landing that many people know little about. With a strong ensemble cast and standout performances by Patrick Warburton and John McMartin as a U.S. Ambassador, ‘The Dish’ is an entertaining comedy, which, as cheesy as it sounds, is the rare film that actually succeeds in making the audience feel good.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
