The Dish is a hopelessly square but entirely inoffensive trifle whose
only major annoyance is its use of the same cloying flashback-framing device
that marred Saving Private Ryan. This true story of the role the small
Australian town of Parkes played in the Apollo moon landing mixes archival
footage with fictional scenes and, in its search for period detail, lays on
the sing-along late- 60s soundtrack a little too thick.
The film s title character is a radio telescope the size of a football field
that has been erected in a sheep pasture outside of Parkes. The dish is manned
by a quaint, quirky three-man crew led by cardigan-and-pipe scientist Cliff
Buxton (Sam Neill). The crew spends its days playing cricket on the dish and
getting lunch delivered by a comely local lass, but all that changes, sort of,
when Parkes is drafted into the Apollo 11 program. It turns out that the city
s dish is the only one in the Southern hemisphere large and powerful enough to
transmit television signals from the moon, and NASA may need them to ensure
that the world gets to see that giant leap for mankind.
The Dish is as much about the town as the mission, focusing on one
small community s role in history. We meet the mayor and his wife, who are
nervous over the impending visits of the Australian prime minister and the
American ambassador. We meet the American NASA has sent to join the Parkes
team (Patrick Warburton, Putty on Seinfeld), whose Clark Kentish, square-
jawed, American professionalism clashes ever so slightly with the laid-back
approach of the Australians.
A brief electrical shutdown creates a technological crisis for the crew, but
there s never any real tension on screen. The Dish is entirely too
sunny to allow much conflict. But its squareness might be what saves it. At a
time when most American comedies are either dumbed-down (though sometimes
hilarious) gross-outs or test-marketed grinds, this Australian film is so
honest, affectionate, and good-hearted it s almost refreshing. Almost. In
short, The Dish is an honorable little film; it s just not that
interesting.
