Spit review: David Wenham’s whiny winner returns

Released back in 2003, Gettin’ Square is not a classic Aussie crime film. It’s no Chopper or Two Hands or the original Mystery Road movies; if you watched The Square by mistake you’d have seen a much grittier film. But it is a reasonably entertaining romp heavily influenced by the Guy Ritchie style of frantic plotting and pushy characters, with one big drawcard: Johnny ‘Spit’ Spiteri (David Wenham).

In Gettin’ Square, Spit is a supporting character who runs riot, all but taking over the film thanks to an extremely committed performance from Wenham as a junkie who in real life would be annoying as hell. Fortunately, in the film he’s mostly gumming up the schemes of a bunch of low-rent criminals we like even less.

With his whiny voice, sweaty demeanour and circular ‘logic’ bubbling up every time he starts talking (and he never stops), he’s that guy hanging around the local mall you never, ever want to run into. And now he’s got his own movie.

A little surprisingly considering Gettin’ Square is more than 20 years old, this is not the story of Spit getting into all-new adventures with an all-new cast. For the last few decades he’s been hiding out in London, but after being nabbed selling bogus Disney merch on the street he’s been deported back to Australia, where his fake passport and some general confusion sees him shipped off to a detention centre.

Watch the Spit trailer.

Turns out that’s not so bad. Spit quickly finds himself a sideline teaching English (badly) to the detainees alongside providing tips on how to Aussie-up their names to help fit into society (or just get their applications processed faster). So wait, he’s being helpful out of the goodness of his heart? More on that later.

Unfortunately for Spit, pretty much everyone from Gettin’ Square (aside from Sam Worthington’s character, who does not return) soon discovers he’s back in the country, and they’re all very keen to pick up where they left off.

Crooked cop Arne Deviers (David Field) and serious crim Chicka Martin (Gary Sweet) want him dead; federal cop Niall Toole (David Roberts) wants him to help finally close the case on Deviers.

As for Marion Barrington (Helen Thompson), her crime-lord hubby (played by Timothy Spall in the first film) is dead, she’s now married to Crusher Knobes (now played by Bob Franklin) and they’ve invested all their ill-gotten gains in running a funeral parlour. Which just might come in handy.

For a while the two stories barely overlap. While the old crime crew is getting all worked up, Spit is making new friends – most notably ‘hard walker’ Jihad Kalif (Arlo Green) – and reconnecting with his previously unmentioned sister (Sofya Gollan) and her son Tyler (Mace Grimes). But once Spit gets back on the streets his old life is waiting for him, and if he wants to have any kind of future he’s going to have to face up to his past.

While Spit was an entertaining supporting character, the idea of spending an entire movie with him as he was in Gettin’ Square was less than appealing. Seems director Jonathan Teplitzky and writer Chris Nyst (both returning from the first film) agreed.

Twenty years and getting off the drugs have mellowed Spit – a lot – making him more of a slightly quirky but kind-hearted older guy who is a bit more clued-in than he sometimes seems. Which wouldn’t be hard, because he seems to be in a world slightly adjacent to the one everyone else lives in.

While that world is once again a dangerous place full of dubious characters (brought to life through an entertaining collection of broad performances), it takes a little while for things to really get started in Spit. Even when it does, a couple of bad guys end up killing themselves off without ever even meeting him – after all, it’s not like Spit was going to kill them himself.

It’s not until the back half of the film that the threats to Spit get personal and the tension really starts to ramp up – having random people attack him for seemingly no reason is the kind of thing Spit just shrugs off, but losing access to his nephew is serious business.

Wenham is clearly having a lot of fun and his performance as the new kinder, gentler Spit is often surprisingly warm and heartfelt. Sanding off his rough edges does come with some drawbacks though, and a mellower Spit is a less obviously amusing Spit.

There’s more to him now than just pissing everyone else off, and while it’s nice to see him helping others and wanting to take care of his family, it does run counter to what made him so memorable the first time around.

To be fair, there’s a big scene at the climax where the filmmakers figure out a way to bring the old Spit back in all his frustrating glory, and it’s the best moment in the film. The old rat cunning is clearly still in there – it’s just a shame it doesn’t get more of a chance to shine here.

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Spit is in cinemas from 6 March 2025.