Skinheads' Visceral Impact
Crowe plays Hando, the de facto leader of a gang of Melbourne skinheads. With best mate Davey (Daniel Pollock) and the rest of the gang, Hando plays father-figure to a dysfunctional racist family that is dedicated to terrorizing the local Vietnamese community. Intruding on the group's happy home life are the Vietnamese resistance to being beaten to a bloody pulp (the skinheads aren't the only ones who wield a mean bat) and the addition of a new member to the gang, Gabe (Jacqueline McKenzie). Originally picked up in a bar by Hando, Davey soon falls in love with her and Hando quickly tires of her, leading to dire consequences for all.

There's no denying Romper Stomper's power. Shot in Super-16 with a handheld camera, the chaotic violence bounces off the screen with a visceral, almost documentary impact. And while this film is often compared to Clockwork Orange, these skinheads are not Stanley Kubrick's stylized futuristic droogs, but, instead, the modern urban nightmare of rabid, merciless, pack-animal youth. Crowe leads an impressive ensemble cast, but stealing the film from him are McKenzie as the complicated Gabe and Pollock (who sadly died before the film was even released) as Davey who slowly begins to recover his sense of humanity when an emotion that isn't hate is awakened in him.

Eventually, though, Romper Stomper loses some of its command, mainly due to writer-director Geoffrey Wright's affection for "kitchen-sink drama" — meaning in this instance that he throws in everything, including the kitchen sink. Gabe isn't just an epileptic — she's a little-rich-girl epileptic who's suffered incestuous abuse at the hands of her father and who has a gay brother (a subplot involving her heroin addiction was dropped along the way, a small favor). Hando is such a virulent racist that he won't even eat pasta, calling it "bloody wog crap." There is a hint of homoeroticism in the relationship between Hando and Davey. About the only thing missing is any real hint of the motivation driving the gang to such virulent acts — Hando talks darkly about racial purity and "them" taking over, but why he or any of them feel such senseless hatred is never explicated.

Two Discs Not Always Better Than One
What Romper Stomper the DVD has to offer is gloriously restored picture and sound. The anamorphic widescreen transfer is in the film's original 1.85:1 aspect ratio and offers sound options in DTS, Dolby Surround, Dolby 5.1 Surround. The technicians at Fox can be justifiably proud of themselves. The film probably looks and sounds better than it ever has — including the theatrical prints.

The big mystery of this DVD is why it's on two discs. The film itself is only 93 minutes long and disc one includes Geoffrey Wright's audio commentary. Disc two contains the film's trailer, a restoration demonstration, production factoids with stills, and interviews — lots and lots of interviews. The back of the DVD box proclaims disc two contains two documentaries, "Skinheads — Reality and Fiction" and "Making the Movie." What these turn out to be are two of three contemporary interviews with Wright, plus there are 1992 interviews with Wright, Crowe, and McKenzie. Fans of Crowe and McKenzie will no doubt enjoy those early interviews with them, but an hour of additional interviews with Wright, in addition to his audio commentary is excessive. His comments tend toward the obvious ("Gangs tend to thrive in bad economic times" — I wouldn't have guessed that), the arrogant (he claims to have influenced Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and he has an annoying habit of referring to his cast as "the boys" and "the kids"), and occasionally verges on the petty (while praising Russell Crowe, he makes it abundantly clear that he found the actor difficult). Wright's commentary isn't a fatal flaw, but one Romper Stomper disc would be quite enough.