Interests us in ways we don't expect. It has a mordant sense of humor and a gift for character and incident that has attracted two of Australia's best actors -- Guy Pearce and Rachel Griffiths -- as well as an excellent supporting cast.

Hard-boiled entertainment in the Tarantino mold is leavened with a distinctively Aussie sense of humor in The Hard Word.

Amusingly gamy, an anecdotal crime film that's an antidote to the pile of overly slick robbery pictures of the past few years.

Tense and compelling, with the added charm of a mischievous spirit.

Works quite well for what it is: a wooly crime yarn with touches of humor and a satisfying, well-developed relationship between the schemers.

This movie could obviously go on fooling us forever, but we are good sports only up to a point, and then our attention drifts. Shame, since there's so much good stuff in it, like how effortlessly Rachel Griffiths keeps two tough guys completely at her mercy.

Some of the plot points are confusingly vague, the tone lurches wildly between genres, and the film's epilogue pushes the bounds of believability - but The Hard Word could never be accused of being predictable.

At times the plot developments in this post-Tarantino story seem so random they suggest automatic writing, but the characters and some of the settings kept me interested.

Roberts' script and direction show sparks of wit, but the plot comes lifted from countless heist films.

Though The Hard Word feels flimsy at times, its breeziness and humor, along with Pearce's performance, make it infinitely more amusing than it's got any right to be. You get the feeling that these actors had fun making this film, and that fun is contagious.

Convoluted yet simple-minded, the movie frequently equates verbosity with wit.

The film would work better if its story unfolded more swiftly and if its twists were more unexpected. The acting is solid, though.

I may be wrong, but I think Guy Pearce is wearing Nicole Kidman's false nose in The Hard Word. Whatever it is that's on his face, it looks like a dead cod and won't win him an Oscar.

Even a one-two punch from Australian stars Guy Pearce and Rachel Griffiths, who are wryly good in this crime caper, can't keep it from sinking into a cavern of cliches.