Australian audiences that rush in to see the Paramount Pictures film The Dictator when it opens this week in cinemas will get their first taste of Housos vs Authority, the new feature based on the TV series Housos.
That’s because a teaser trailer for Paul Fenech’s latest local comedy will be shown before the latest, similarly politically incorrect feature starring Sacha Baron Cohen.
Housos broadcaster SBS has described the series as doing to bogans what Kath and Kim did to lower, middle-class Australia. In the big-screen version a bunch of bludgers go on a trip to Uluru to scatter Shazza’s mum’s ashes on top of Australia’s most famous icon.
Housos vs Authority is being ushered into cinemas in early November by Transmission Films, which channels all its films through Paramount’s booking system.
The film does not have a sales agent.
“Paul Fenech is a comic genius and we know audiences who appreciate the out-there humour of Sacha Baron Cohen and The Dictator, will also get Paul’s unflinching but hilarious take on Australian suburban life in Housos vs Authority,” said Richard Payten and Andrew Mackie in a statement released Friday and attributed to both Transmissions’s joint managing directors. “It’s politically incorrect, it’s mayhem and it’s very, very funny,”
Fenech wrote, directed and produced the new film — and stars as Franky — which was made on location in Western Sydney, the north coast of NSW and in central Australia. His co-stars are Jason (Jabba) Davis, Elle Dawe (Shazza) and Kevin Taumata.
Paul Fenech is best known for his television although Fat Pizza, based on his longest-running SBS series Pizza, graced cinemas in 2003.
Larry Charles, who directed the other Cohen films Borat, Religulous and Bruno, and is known for his writing on Seinfield, directed The Dictator, which opens on a Wednesday instead of the usual Thursday.