David Wenham returns as a small-time crim in misfiring Spit

For two countries that share many things, including the Tasman Sea, it’s surprising how different our movies are from Australian ones.

For instance, Australia’s very keen on low-life, crime comedies like 2003’s Gettin’ Square.

The Aussie urban crime comedy is like the dumber brother of hit TV show Underbelly.

The most popular character in Gettin’ Square – popular in Australia at any rate – was idiot ex-junkie John Spitieri, played by David Wenham.

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Now Spit’s back – in his own film, just called Spit – and needless to say his police record is full of holes. Unlike Spit himself who’s been clean for 20 years.

But when Spit comes home on a dodgy passport, he’s arrested anyway.

Where the first film was mostly concerned with small-time crims, big-time crims and bent coppers, this one has added extra layers.

Spit is thrown into a detention centre full of refugees and semi-legal immigrants. Including Spit’s new best mate, a Syrian called – wait for it – Jihad.

No, it’s not quite as racist and Team America as it sounds.

But it is getting rather complicated, and therefore there’s no real need to add a long-lost deaf sister for Spit, along with her red-headed son. Apart from some obvious “ginger” jokes.

Added to all this are a few plotlines left over from Gettin’ Square. Spit’s ticket out of the underworld back then was working undercover for the few non-bent cops in the first movie.

And now everyone is out to stop Spit from spilling the beans - I’m not sure if any of that makes a lot of sense.

Still, who’s the former top criminal lawyer here - me or scriptwriter Chris Nyst, who also wrote Gettin’ Square?

We have to assume the character of ambulance-chasing Syrian lawyer Aria is based on experience too.

The trouble is, despite giving Aria a cool catch-phrase, Spit finds itself with nothing to do with her.

There are a number of courtroom scenes, but mostly they’re set up to get Spit to defend himself. And frankly, the comedy value of mispronouncing “your h-onour” diminishes the more he says it.

But the problems I had with Spit are the same ones I had with Gettin’ Square all those years ago. Too many small plots instead of one decent, big one.

There’s also an inability to warm us to the character of Spit himself, described – not by me – as “that beloved small-time criminal.”

Spit clearly assumed they’d already done most of the heavy lifting with these characters 20 years ago.

Now all we were waiting for was to give a classic character – you might even describe Spit as “iconic” – a long overdue happy ending.

And by “happy ending” I mean an excuse for star Wenham to show off his bogan dance moves and, at the end, some air-piano that’s not quite as funny as he thinks.

Which of course is pretty much what I was getting at from the start.