Crocodile Dundee

The 'fish-out-of-water' premise was the big thing in 1980s comedy. Beverly Hills Cop, Back To The Future and, most literally, Splash! all angled for laughs from the juxtaposition of right person, wrong place and time.

To prove that Hollywood didn't have total monopoly on the idea, a little movie from Down Under came up with one of the biggest fish of them all. The adventures of Paul Hogan's Michael J 'Crocodile' Dundee broke box-office records for a non-US release all over the world, secured him an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay and for all of five minutes, made him the world's hottest comedy prospect. Not bad for a guy best known outside his homeland for car and beer adverts.

In retrospect Crocodile Dundee is a 1980s movie par excellence: high-concept and slickly shot, and featuring a bouncy soundtrack and a handful of standout gags to keep you chuckling on the way home; basically a ninety-odd minute trailer. The film's very appeal is its unpretentious, unthreatening nature. Mick Dundee may be an Outback legend and survivor of a deadly (and slightly exaggerated) croc attack but he's harmless to anyone else. He's the eunuch version of the boorish, beer-swilling, Sheila-baiting stereotypical Aussie male. Still, it's enough for sophisticated Newsday reporter Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) to fall for him in a matter of days and bring him back to New York like some kind of trophy.

It's only once they reach the urban jungle that the film really kicks off. Mick's good-natured, low-key batting back of the natives' strange customs provide the highlights and Hogan's unhurried, deadpan style is ideally suited to the innocent abroad scenario. Neat set pieces with Times Square hookers, the high-society set and a mugger who he disarms with a well-aimed tin of peaches, are undoubtedly what drew audiences in.

It's just as well these scenes work because, despite hooking up for real during shooting, Hogan and Kozlowksi have precious little chemistry together. Sue is a colossal bore, flitting between her smug Park Avenue editor/fiancée Richard (Mark Blum) and good old Mick as if they were canapés, not potential husbands. Almost all Hogan's best moments come when she's not around and a romantic comedy without a decent romance is never going to be a complete success.