It’s been over 20 years, but I still have very fond memories of Gettin’ Square.  Written by an experienced lawyer who’d seen all sorts of things on the Gold Coast, it was a riotous caper about drugs, crime and corruption in his home city.  The film opened the Brisbane International Film Festival in 2003 and earned 14 Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award nominations.  The cast included Sam Worthington and Timothy Spall, but it was David Wenham who provided the memorable performance as drug addict Johnny Spitieri and won the AFI Award for best actor.

Director Jonathan Teplitzky and screenwriter Chris Nyst have teamed up again for this 2025 sequel.  It opens with Johnny Spitieri flying back into Australia on a false passport, being arrested by immigration officials, and locked up in a detention facility.  He’s no longer a drug user but he’s just as dopey.  Well, that’s at least how he comes across.  It’s up to audiences to decide how much is deliberate naivety as opposed to a lack of functioning brain cells.

Spit is a different film and sadly, not a better one.  While Gettin’ Square was a wild, amusing tale centred on a bunch of dodgy criminals, this is a more mellow outing that struggles because of its focus on a single character.  Johnny Spitieri is funny in small doses, like his famous courtroom scene in the 2003 original, but when he’s front and centre for the whole movie, his silliness becomes tiring.  The script doesn’t give him enough interesting things to do.

Worthington and Spall are absent from this sequel and so the responsibility falls on other returning players to create appealing subplots.  That too is underwhelming.  Gary Sweet does very little as criminal mastermind Chicka Martin (he hardly leaves his house) while Helen Thomson is in a similar boat as the now owner of a funeral home.  It feels like they’ve only been included because they were in the first movie… not because they have storylines worth pursuing.

The film is somewhat saved by its new characters who do the heavy lifting.  Arlo Green is decent as an immigrant, taken under Johnny’s wing, who wants to make a better life for himself in Australia.  Sofya Gollan gives the film an emotional kick with her performance as Johnny’s long-lost sister.  Pallavi Sharda purposefully overplays the role and makes the most of her limited screentime (wish she had more) as Johnny’s clueless lawyer (she’s like an energetic version of The Castle’s Dennis Denuto).

There’s likely to be interest from fans of Gettin’ Square (it’ll help if you’ve seen it) but, even if you’re part of that demographic, I’d keep expectations in check.  Spit is not a terrible film, but it needed more narrative, more grit and more laughs to warrant a strong endorsement.