Fat Pizza
Fat Pizza is a 2003 Australian comedy film based on the Pizza television series, both of which were created, produced, written and starred in by Paul Fenech. It features Rebel Wilson's first movie credit.
| Fat Pizza | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Paul Fenech |
| Written by | Tahir Bilgiç Paul Fenech |
| Based on | Pizza (TV series) |
| Produced by | Tanith Carrol Paul Fenech Jeff Purser |
| Starring | Paul Fenech Paul Nakad John Boxer Tahir Bilgiç |
| Narrated by | Ian Turpie |
| Cinematography | Mike Kliem |
| Distributed by | Roadshow Entertainment |
Release dates | 10 April 2003 (Australia) 21 August 2003 (New Zealand) |
Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $2,146,843 |
It was produced by Village Roadshow Pictures and SBS Independent (uncredited).[1] It was filmed in the Canterbury-Bankstown region of Sydney, specifically Bass Hill and Chullora. Scenes were also filmed in the Hills District of Sydney, at Kellyville and Norwest Business Park.[2] It was released by Roadshow Entertainment[1] on 10 April 2003 and made $2,146,843 at the box office.[3]
Plot
The film is set in Canterbury-Bankstown and opens with the protagonist, Pauly (Paul Fenech), claiming that the following events are all true and that real names are used.
Pauly arrives late at work to find his employer, Bobo (Johnny Boxer), has hired a new delivery driver, Davo (Jason Davis). Pauly explains to Davo that Bobo is crazy from being a forty-year-old virgin who lives with his mother, but is getting married the next day to a Vietnamese mail-order bride, Lin Chow Bang (Tuyen Le), who is sneaking into the country illegally. Pauly then shows Davo the "Former Employee Hall of Shame", which features Sahib (Desan Padayachee), who was forced out for being too polite and not tough enough. In retribution for being fired, Sahib and his friends opened their own pizzeria, Phat Pizza.
Later on, Pauly gets into a traffic accident with clown mascot Ronnie Mcdoggle (George Kapiniaris), whom Pauly mocks and assaults. Dozens more clown mascots surround Pauly, forcing him to single-handedly fight them all off, after which the clowns decide to back down and Pauly flees the scene in his delivery car.
Meanwhile, Davo is late delivering a pizza to a house of bikies. While looking around the delivery address, he finds a drug lab producing homemade steroids and a large amount of marijuana. He is then discovered by the bikie gang who fight with and subdue Davo. The bikies are about to kill Davo as the lab catches light and explodes as a result of Davo dropping a joint during the fight. Davo and the bikies survive the explosion, but Davo is able to escape. Back at the Pizzeria, Davo meets fellow delivery driver Sleek the Elite (Paul Nakad), who tells him how he feigns romantic interest in unattractive women so he can meet and sleep with their attractive friends. Sleek then details how he has another delivery driver, Habib (Tahir Bilgic) secretly film his sexual encounters without the women's knowledge.
While Pauly is getting ready to go clubbing with the other delivery drivers, Sahib steals his employee uniform from his clothes line and uses it to sneak into the pizzeria and tamper with the phonelines, redirecting all incoming calls to steal their business. Upon leaving, he is spotted by a group of the clown mascots who mistake him for Pauly and beat him up. As a result of their tampering, Phat Pizza then receives a phone call from the bikie gang asking for their address. During the night out with the other delivery drivers, Sleek runs into Toula (Rebel Wilson), one of the girls he has been leading on. Toula and her friends drug Sleek and abduct him. Upon awaking, they tell Sleek that they are sick of men using them to date their attractive friends and rape him as an act of revenge.
Come the next day, Sleek is on his way to the wedding when he is attacked by a coalition of organised crime syndicates who have allied against Sleek because the mafia leaders' daughters were victims of Sleek and Habib's voyeurism. Scared for his life, Sleek calls Rocky for help, who rallies a Lebanese mob to come to Sleek's defence. However, Rocky discovers that his sister was one of the girls Sleek slept with and had Habib film, leading him to turn on Sleek and join the gangs in beating him up. Bobo, his bride and their guests discover at the wedding that the priest quadruple booked the church, causing the priest to hastily marry all of the couples. Pauly then declares in a cut-away that "At this point, all that was left to do was go and get pissed".
In the post-credit scenes, Sleek calls Bobo from the hospital to ask for workers compensation only to be fired. The bikie gang members then kill the Phat Pizza employees mistaking them for the staff of Fat Pizza.
Cast
| Actor | Character |
|---|---|
| Paul Fenech | Pauly Falzoni |
| Paul Nakad | Sleek the Elite |
| John Boxer | Bobo Gigliotti |
| Tahir Bilgiç | Habib Halal |
| Jabba | Davo Dinkum |
| Desan Padayachee | Sahib |
| Maria Venuti | Bobo's Mama |
| Anh Do | Chong Fat |
| Annalise Braakensiek | Claudia Macpherson |
| Angry Anderson | Bikie |
| Glenn Butcher | Priest |
| Michael Craig | Judge |
| Cass Cumerford | Main in white |
| June Dries | Bikie babe #1 |
| Jeff Fenech | Himself |
| Mario Fenech | Uncle Shiba |
| Tim Ferguson | David Cockerfield |
| Linden Goh | Lachlan |
| Merv Hughes | Ivan Milat |
| Kamahl | Manager of Phat Pizza |
| George Kapiniaris | Ronnie McDoggle |
| Costas Kilias | Dimitri |
| Bernard King | Leather Gay Man |
| Hung Le | Revenge-Crazed Gangster |
| Elliot Goblet | Health Inspector |
| Pip Mushin | Injured Mormon |
| Shane Porteous | Doctor |
| Denise Roberts | Various roles |
| Phillip Scott | Injured Mormon |
| Arthur Serevetas | Fighting Arthur Penn |
| Rob Shehadie | Rocky |
| Chris Franklin | Dazza |
| Kristine Stanley | The Crying Lady |
| Red Symons | Northern Territory Customs Officer |
| Krista Vendy | Green Peace Secretary |
| Rebel Wilson | Toula (Wilson's first film credit[4]) |
| Phen Yee Sng | Ling's Father |
| Alex Antequera | Gay Hitman |
| Bruno Xavier | Young Gandhi |
| Tuyen Le | Lin Chow Bang |
| Peng Wong | Refugee Uncle |
| Shakir Pichler | Mafia Boss in Boxing flashback |
Reception
The film received a mostly positive response from critics. Adrian Martin, a PhD in Film Style, gave the film a 3 out of 5 rating, praising it for its strong, outrageous jokes, saying they elevate it above most Australian comedies. Martin also commended its energy, brash confidence and appeal to its target audience.[5] Louise Keller of Urban Cinefile said that the film's offensive humour was "very funny" and praised it for being irreverent, high-energy and over-the-top.[6]
Controversy
The film was a source of controversy because of its use of vulgar humour, racial stereotypes and ethnic slurs (including choco, for non-white people). Some have argued that the portrayal of ethnic-minority characters in the film links vulgarity to ethnic identity and social class. The film is also accused of disingenuously passing off its representations of ethnic minorities as satire to excuse its harmful implications.[7] As such, it is an example of self-stereotyping, like other Australian ethnic-minority lead comedies are.[8]
A counterargument to this that has been raised is that the film gives representation to ethnic minorities, such as Lebanese and Vietnamese people, who were previously absent from Australian comedy[9] and that it is an example of ethnic minorities representing themselves and pushing against mainstream representations.[8] Therefore, Fat Pizza—among other films—marks a shift in the representation of minorities in Australian media away from sensitive, serious portrayals towards market driven entertainment (Khorana, 2019). The favored reception of the film is argued to represent a large, youthful, ethnic-minority audience looking for an outlet against being minoritized in Australian media.[10]
Paul Fenech stated in an interview "It's a very hard country for a lot of people to survive, and that's why people come to my shows, doesn't matter whether they are Greek or bogan."[8]
Sequel
The television show for which the film was adapted from went on to be renewed for another two seasons, which aired in 2005 and 2007 on SBS. A crossover film between Fat Pizza and Housos – another television show created by Paul Fenech – was released on 27 November 2014.[11] The Fat Pizza television show was revived for a sixth season in 2019 by Paul Fenech and premiered on 7mate, November, 2019.[12]
See also
References
- "Fat Pizza (2003): Company Credits". IMDb. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
- "Fat Pizza (2003): Filming and Production". IMDb. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
- "Fat Pizza (2003)". IMDb. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
- https://celebrity.nine.com.au/latest/stan-how-they-started-out-a-listers-surprising-first-movie-roles/ab3071d8-5b0a-42fb-8e23-43190a2379ef
- Martin, Adrian (April 2003). "Fat Pizza". Film Critic. Retrieved 26 March 2021.
- Keller, Louise (2003). "Fat Pizza". Urban Cinefile. Archived from the original on 4 October 2012. Retrieved 22 April 2021.
- Speed, Lesley (2005). "Life as a Pizza: The Comic Traditions of Wogsploitation Films". Metro Magazine: Media and Education Magazine. 146/147: 136–144.
- Khorana, S (2020). "Diverse Australians on Television: From Nostalgic Whiteness to Aspirational Multiculturalism". Media International Australia. 174 (1): 29–38. doi:10.1177/1329878X19863849. S2CID 214385171.
- Kitson, M (2003). "Surprisingly Tasty: Fat Pizza". Metro Magazine: Media and Education Magazine. 137: 22–27.
- Stratton, J (2005). "Lost in Music: Popular Music, Multiculturalism and Australian Film". In Coyle, R (ed.). Reel Tracks: Australian Feature Film, Music and Cultural Identities. Eastleigh, United Kingdom: John Libbey. pp. 74–93.
- Wilson, Jake (26 November 2014). "Fat Pizza vs Housos review: Paul Fenech's suburban comedy takes stereotypes to the extreme". The Sydney Morning Herald.
- McManus, Bridget (2 November 2019). "It's big and it's cheesy: Fat Pizza is Back in Business". The Sydney Morning Herald.