Romper Stomper (1993)

“Romper Stomper” put Russell Crowe on the world stage. He plays Hando, a fireball of unending menace, a neo-Nazi skinhead with a devastating temper and raw sexual power. He is the leader of a ragtag pack of Melbourne racists -- all jobless, essentially homeless, stealing all that they own, and coming and going in a beat-up old clunker car, packed in like sardines. They blast hate music celebrating the glory of their white European heritage all the while. It’s a dark, uneasy satire: These thugs are not even self-aware. (Hando is fully in the know, he just doesn’t care.) Director/writer Geoffrey Wright doesn’t get all preachy on us, he doesn’t have to. Hando’s best mate is Davey (Daniel Pollock), a young man tiring of his thug life, and the arrival of a fiery, lost red head (Jacqueline McKenzie) is just the right push for the men to break apart. This is a violent and unflinching drama that loses its punch only once -- a scene where a young boy is shot. (The scene is handled badly, and feels overly faked.) Crowe, eyes ablaze, cuts through every other actor and set piece like a molten sword of hate. A