A review of the popular movie “Crocodile Dundee”
There is a genre of film known as ‘fish out of water’ where the protagonist finds himself or herself in totally unfamiliar surrounding, usually causing much humour and sometimes some fear.
This trope is featured twice in this delightful romantic comedy of 1986: first when New York journalist Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) ventures into the Australian outback in pursuit of a story and then when Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee (Paul Hogan)is persuaded to exploit his sudden fame by exploring the strangeness of NYC. The story was inspired by the true-life exploits of Rod Ansell.
The low-budget film was such a major hit that there were two sequels, “Crocodile Dundee II” (1988) and “Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles” (2001), neither of which had the same measure of success.
Note: Sometimes films have real-world consequences. In the making of this movie, Hogan and Kozlowski – in spite of an age difference of almost 30 years – fell in love. He left his wife of 31 years and married Kozlowski, a union which lasted 24 years before she too moved on.