SUBMITTED BY Fred Hill

March 15, 2001 —

This is a review for the Associated Press by Matt Wolf:

Here's the dish on ``The Dish,'' whose title refers not to dinnerware or even to gossip but to the potentially driest of topics, a satellite dish.

The movie is a likable slice of small-town Australian life at a time when a little-known rural community came to the forefront of the globe.

Sure, ``The Dish'' may not always sustain its humor, and those on guard against sentimentality may feel the hackles rise. But as directed by Rob Sitch, who co-wrote the screenplay with three others, this depiction of the antipodean contribution to the 1969 Apollo 11 moon mission is more ``The Full Monty'' than ``Apollo 13.''

Simply put, it's a lark.

That's sort of how the good people of Parkes in New South Wales react when their town is chosen to host the world's most powerful receiving dish &emdash; a radio-telescope capable of monitoring from the Southern Hemisphere the moonwalk that NASA is itself channeling through a separate dish in California.

But when the astronauts achieve their historic goal early, it falls to the Parkes dish to record the moment. That would be easily enough accomplished except for several unforeseen hurdles, including unexpectedly gusty winds.

Will Parkes live up to its global promise? (If the community had not, there would be no movie.) What isn't predictable is the behavior of a populace newly thrust into the spotlight, confronted with a dish that looks pretty odd positioned in a sheep paddock.

The script mixes the ultimately triumphant behavior of the machinery itself with the quirky array of men who are on hand to monitor it &emdash; the pipe-smoking Cliff Buxton (Sam Neill), the so-called ``dishmaster,'' who must keep the peace among astrophysicist colleagues Glenn (Tom Long), Mitch (Kevin Harrington) and NASA's representative, Al (Patrick Warburton).

They bicker and spar and jockey for position &emdash; and Glenn breaks away from the quartet to summon up the courage to ask a local girl out on a date.

The town goes eccentrically about its routine. Mayor Bob McIntyre (Roy Billing) busies himself attending to the visiting U.S. ambassador (John McMartin), while McIntyre's wife (Genevieve Mooy) bustles about like one to-the-grand-occasion born.

``Elbows,'' she remonstrates to her husband during a roast lamb lunch that demands proper etiquette. Protocol is one thing, accuracy another: A local band mistakenly plays the theme from ``Hawaii Five-O'' in place of the U.S. national anthem.

The couple's sullen, combative daughter Marie (Lenka Kripac) keeps up her fiercely anti-capitalist front, while brainy younger brother Billy (Carl Snell) merely immerses himself in the how-and-why of the whole event.

Best of all is Rudi (Tayler Kane), a security guard not particularly quick on the uptake &emdash; ``who goes there?'' he barks to an errant sheep &emdash; but primed for the wonder of the occasion.

``This whole thing, I can't believe it,'' he says, setting up the shift toward schmaltz into which ``The Dish'' partly slides. An overemotive soundtrack doesn't help.

``The Dish'' doesn't need to cue our responses; its story is strong enough, reminding us as it does of a time that Cliff says was ``science's chance to be daring.''

The film is framed by the return of the aged Cliff to the site of his great triumph, during which he stops to doff his cap at the dish.

Some may want to do the same toward ``The Dish,'' which substitutes daring for that far less available screen quality &emdash; darling.

``The Dish'' is a Warner Bros. release of a Working Dog presentation, executive producer Michael Hirsh. Rated PG-13 for brief, strong language. Running time: 101 minutes.