CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | Contact
Vince Colosimo is back. That’s according to the early reviews of the newest Australian western-thriller to garner this much international buzz since Heath Ledger’s Ned Kelly.
The 51-year-old stalwart of Australian true crime is tipped to bring home the silverware in the lead role of Bob Katter MP in the Nick Cave-directed political thrilller ‘Three Billboards Outside Of Mt Isa, Queensland’.
The film, which explores the climatic final days before the North Queensland politican Bob Katter severed ties with the National Party and began his career as an independent, has been praised for it’s authentic portrayal of the maverick MPs blow up with regional Australian powerbrokers, set in the backdrop of the crippling 2001 drought in Western Queensland.
The story show the trails and tribulations leading up to Katter’s resignation from the Nats, a move that inevitably resulted in him carrying the balance of power at least eighteen times over the last two decades.
With exhilarating plot twists throughout, Colosimo comes into his own as the feirce regional independent and founder of Katter’s Australia party.
Fed up with the constant privatisation of Australian assets, Katter becomes disillusioned with the federal party that claims to represent the bush – forcing him to take matters into his own hands by declaring his resignation via three giant billboards, just outside of the capital of Queensland’s North-West Mt Isa. Home to the Katter electorate office.
It then covers the subsequent indepedent election campaign that saw a healthy 30% swing in Katter’s favour.
Then-Prime Minister John Howard is played by Australian TV heart throb Richard Roxburgh in what is described as breathtakingly authentic performance. John Stratton has called it “Rake without any personality or charisma”.
The lead character’s rival, National Party leader John Anderson is played by Brian Brown.
Bob’s son and the heir to the Kennedy Electorate, Robbie Katter, is played by prominent Lebanese-Australian actor Firass Dirani
