MOVIE REVIEWS : ROMANTIC WW II ‘REBEL’ OVERREACHES

“Rebel” (citywide) is a dynamic, ambitious World War II musical fantasy-romance from Australia that overreaches yet leaves us better nourished than most run-of-the-mill movies.

Director Michael Jenkins joined forces with “Rocky Horror Picture Show” production designer Brian Thomson and playwright Bob Herbert in transforming Herbert’s single-set non-musical play “No Names . . . No Packdrill” into a large-scale, nostalgic pop opera. Their boldly stylized approach, somewhat akin to that of Francis Coppola in “One From the Heart,” does yield fresh emotion from their classic wartime romance, but they are cursed with the problem of coming up with a satisfactory ending that would reconcile contemporary sensibilities and perspective with patriotic wartime values.

In essence, “Rebel” is a backstage musical in which the star (Debbie Byrne) of a Sydney nightclub revue gives shelter and finally love to a younger American Marine (Matt Dillon), fresh from the horrors of Guadalcanal and ready to pay a slick waterfront operator (Bryan Brown, in flashy wardrobe and a wicked Edmund Lowe mustache) to smuggle him out of the country. No beauty but warmly appealing, Byrne exudes a brassy, gutsy Barbara Stanwyck quality that makes credible Dillon’s handsome, sweet Southern youth’s attraction to her.

Where “Rebel” scores strongest is in its headlong pacing and its great gaudy look dominated by cherry red and hot pink and given a darkly metallic, neon gleam by cinematographer Peter James. For the film Thomson re-created the racy World War II Sydney dock area with its red-light district catering to American soldiers, focusing on a Quonset hut nightclub featuring production numbers with a glitter deliberately exaggerated for the time and place. “Rebel” (which is a bit mild for its R-rating) is far too esoteric for its wide, no-press-preview release, but might just end up a cult item.