Word: plot
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Unfortunately, though all the clever touches and well-acted segments add up, they don't make for a first-rate movie. They can't overcome the plot; it isn't different or fresh enough. The bright colors of the gypsy world make this drab story good entertainment, nothing more...
These are the givens, along with a few more--like Brooke Shields--which make King of the Gypsies interesting. The movie's subject--the gypsy subculture in New York during the forties--deserves and receives much attention, but the plot itself is run-of-the-mail...
Except for the fact that Dave ends up killing his father--who deserves it--there is nothing extraordinary about the plot; it's just like countless fairy tales. At times it even seems trite. Dave, the handsome gypsy, takes up with Susan, a rich blonde American girl. Dave, the dark and mysterious gypsy, dreams of California. And, typically, neither the romance nor the emigration can ever come to pass. Although Groffo's hired killers botch their job, they manage to gash Dave's face. Susan is too horrified to help and not gypsy enough to understand. Dave turns to Sharon...
...plot revolves around Richard Chamberlain as a Sydney corporate lawyer living an idyllic suburban life with his wife and two adorable little girls. When the weather begins to act strangely, Chamberlain is unconcerned. His life is ordered and promising--he plays tennis on Sundays on his backyard court, spends a lot of time troubleshooting on the phone ("Right, Ed, I'll check on it first thing Monday morning"), and any strange occurrences in the outside world can be quickly swept away with a flick of the wiper-washer switch on his blue-gray Volvo. Ignore for the moment that Chamberlain...
...real as our present-day reality. Things begin to tie in: Chamberlain's dreams... the Aborigines... the strange events in the weather. But it's too easy. Weir has spent a great deal of time building tension, creating atmosphere, invloving the audience, and to resolve the entire plot with the old voodoo hocus-pocus is an irritating letdown. Furthermore, Weir gets increasingly caught up in making The last Wave a disaster-movie morality-play--maybe these primitive people aren't so primitive, maybe the white people have destroyed a much more advanced civilization (shades of Chariots of the Gods...