My Critical Review of "The Dish"

The Dish is based on a true story and is set in the late 60s. The simplicity of the title may not catch the eye of the average movie goer, but in fact the story line is reflected in a way that makes the movie somewhat interesting to watch, the occasional laughter and minor catastrophes add to the movie being much more interesting than its title perceives. First of all, let me tell you the story of the movie so you can see what I am actually talking about and present my positive and negative views of the movie.

As mentioned, it is set in the late 60s (the year 1969 to be exact). The story starts off in present day Australia when Cliff Buxton (played by Sam Neill) takes a trip down memory lane by driving down to the town of Parkes. Exactly whether he still lives at that town is not shown, and personally i don't think it matters much. When looking at a huge satellite dish, it appears he keeps thinking about the past times. The story gets going when a security guard comes along advising him to go to the visitors area. In a way, he simply ignores the request and the story begins. I think this scene had much more potential than the director applied to it. I have seen many movies that had a much better 'feel' when it comes to telling the story about past times. This was done quite well in the movie "Road to Perdition, 2002" and even more so in the movie "Saving Private Ryan, 1998" where the score was used to render the scene in a much more emotional way than it was done in this movie. Also I think the part were the security guard advises him to go to the visitors center is a little unrealistic as the whole story of the movie gets told by his thoughts and when the movie ends the security guard is still waiting for him there.

When the story telling begins we learn that the dish that was there in the little town of Parkes, is actually the largest dish of that size in the world. We learn that NASA, with all their resources to send a human to the moon, did not have the space and capabilities required to send those incredible images back to earth for 300 million viewers. Therefore, the signal of the Apollo 11 spacecraft was to be sent to the dish in Australia, relaying the signals from the space ship back to NASA in Houston, Texas. Because of the large space that is available in remote parts of Australia, the little town of Parkes has become a part of that historic mission. It is pleasing to see that finally there is a movie that does not show only that the rich and powerful have the power and control in this world but also 'a little town' has a chance to become part of something big.

The team to control the dish was headed by Cliff Buxton (Sam Neill), tempermental "Mitch" Mitchell (Kevin Harrington) and shy Glenn Latham (Tom Long). NASA also sent along one of their scientists for observation purposes, namely Al Burnett (Patrick Warburton)

Three quarters through the movie, we see a catastrophic power failure which causes the team to loose the signal of the spaceship and causes the television transmission, that NASA hopes to broadcast to the world when they land on the moon, to cease. After another untimely visit by the American ambassador, it was quite funny to see how the team managed to fool the ambassador after his request to listen to some of the transmissions from the spaceship. Whether he knew that it was a fake and that the satellite was not functioning is not really clear in the movie. After the coordinates were finally reestablished, they regain their transmission with the spaceship just in time when Appollo 11 prepares to land on the moon. This is the famous part where we see Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin step down the ladder onto the lunar surface and the old famous line: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". Again, if I would compare that moment with the movie "Apollo 13, 1995" again the score used in that movie redered the scene in a much more special way than it was shown in the dish.

The movie ends on that note, of the great achievements of the team in the town of Parkes in broadcasting the moon mission and brings us back to Cliff Buxton's thoughts in the beginning of the movie.

Throughout the movie we see the team setting up and running the satellite broadcast. We also get a visit from the ambassador to the United States several times thoughout the movie, and a rare peak at the government house in Canberra. This scene I must say was quite unique and it is not often that there are many scenes in a movie that show the government house and its interiors, perhaps to a lack of interest. But also what it reminded me of, is the same method that is used in Hollywood cinema, where we see the white house and the people working in there. This immediately got me to think that this movie is slightly mimicin Hollywood cinema. The musical themes that were used throughout the movie seem to reflect America more than Australia, in fact there were hardly any Australian musical themes used in the movie. I understand that this movie is mainly about the transmission from the moon to NASA, but it also shows the effords made by Australia and playing American musical themes while showing the Australian landscape/countryside simply does not make Australia unique in this instance. Personally I think Australian country music would have done the trick as well and would have given a little more Australianess to the movie. Another interesting aspect that I noticed was that alot of images that were shown from NASA in the movie were also shown in the movie "Apollo 13, 1995" and some of the American musical themes were also used in the movie "Forrest Gump, 1994".

On a final note, judging from the media and my own personal opinion, this film seems to contain two genres within it. It is both a historical movie as well as a comedy, those two types of genres have been perfectly mixed together and have worked very well throughout the movie.

Overall, besides a few hiccups mentioned, I think the movie deserves credit for showing the great effort Australia has committed to NASA. Showing a historic moment in time, as well as being quite funny and telling the story in a rather interesting way than some other directors would have failed to do.

Over all I give the movie a B grade effort.