As Leon Ford’s mild-mannered Aussie superhero flick Griff the Invisible points out, it’s highly improbable that a masked vigilante by night is a charismatic playboy millionaire like Bruce Wayne by day. No, it takes a ‘special’ kind of person to profess to having superpowers and fight crime wearing a rubber suit. You know, someone who is… missing a few screws. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. One banana short of a fruit salad.
In other words, they’re people like Griff (Ryan Kwanten; Red Hill), an introverted office worker who spends his nights secretly surveilling the city for any excuse to become his crime-fighting alter ego. More pitiful than he is powerful, Griff only feels comfortable in his own skin when he’s pretending to answer urgent distress calls from the Commissioner, or ripping off his work clothes to reveal his G-crested costume beneath. His older brother Tim (Patrick Brammall; Home and Away) wishes he’d just give up his childish fantasies and wake up to real world, but Griff – a victim of bullying at work by office clown Tony (Toby Schmitz; Somersault) – finds a sense of security in being invisible to those around him.
That changes when he meets fellow oddball Melody (Maeve Dermody; Beautiful Kate), Tim’s new girlfriend who firmly believes it’s possible to walk through walls so long as every atom is perfectly aligned. The two are instantly drawn to each other’s idiosyncrasies, yet their reluctance to play by the rules of reality does little to please their family and friends.
I wouldn’t be the first to compare Ford’s film to Kick-Ass, last year’s DIY superhero movie that also portrayed someone on the fringe of society taking the law into their own hands. But whereas Kick-Ass is about as hyperactive as a toddler on Christmas morning, Griff is far more low-key. I’d sooner liken it to indie rom-coms such as 500 Days of Summer than any comic-book capers given how it pulls more emotional punches than physical ones. The casting is spot on, Kwanten winning us over with the same childlike charm he exudes as Jason Stackhouse in TV’s True Blood, minus the cockiness. If not romantic chemistry, there’s an endearing kinship that forms between Kwanten and Dermondy – whose performance is as tuneful as her character’s name suggests — that makes it easier to forgive the absence of a strong narrative.
Ultimately though, Griff the Invisible is simply too meek to get truly excited about. Ford’s screenplay could do with a few more comedic moments, while his direction – although impressively poised for a first-time feature – would benefit from a shot of adrenaline every once in a while to help offset the film’s leisurely pace. As it stands, I suspect Griff’s invisibility will extend to its theatrical run here in Australia, which is less to do with the quality of the film and more to do with Ford’s unwillingness to adhere to the expectations audiences have when it comes to superhero films. It’s commendable filmmaking rather than commercial filmmaking, and while there’s nothing particularly wrong with that, a better film would have been both.
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