GARAGE DAYS []
Running time: 105 minutes. Rated R (sex, drugs, violence). At the Empire and the Sunshine.
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OVERKILL isn’t limited to big Hollywood blockbusters these days – take “Garage Days,” a small-scale Australian musical with an appealing no-name cast whose charms are obscured by directorial self-indulgence.
Alex Proyas, an Egyptian-born Aussie who made his reputation in Hollywood with stylish genre flicks like “The Crow,” returns Down Under to tell what should have been a fairly simple tale about a struggling, not particularly talented garage band and their romantic complications.
Lead singer Freddy (Kick Gurry) is hooked up with bass player Tanya (Pia Miranda), but she’s sexually unsatisfied – and he’s secretly smitten with Kate (Maya Stange), the group’s songwriter.
But Kate is newly pregnant by yet another member of the band, schizophrenic bass player Joe (Brett Stiller), who in turn is cheating on her with Angie (Yvette Duncan), a Goth chick who likes to do it on tombstones – or is Angie a figment of his fevered imagination?
Completing the sexual roundelay is the Mohawked, sexually ambiguous drummer, Lucy (Chris Sandrinna), who works as a pharmacist and liberally samples his wares; and the group’s hapless manager, Bruno (Russell Dysktra).
Bruno has little luck lining up gigs in Sydney’s dying music scene, but Freddy wangles an audition out of the city’s top music manager after catching him in a compromising position with his top act’s girlfriend.
Proyas embellishes nearly every scene with wearying visual pyrotechnics – slow motion, manipulated stills and elaborate special effects – that distract from the fresh performances and give the whole thing the musty feel of a second-rate, mid-’90s music video.
“Garage Days” is fun, but it would have been even more entertaining if Proyas had taken an unplugged approach.