Gettin’ Square sequel Spit is a poignant exploration of Australian identity wrapped in a comedic crime caper

It had been more than 20 years since David Wenham had donned the tight jeans and mullet of Johnny Spitieri, his low-level crook character from 2003 gangster comedy Gettin’ Square.

But the capper to the look was always the thongs. Not some fancy-pants pair but no-nonsense flip-flops you pick up at a servo for $7. Johnny had a preternatural gift for running in thongs, a notoriously difficult task but, it turns out, the key is to not think about it and grip on for your life.

“As soon as I slipped into the thongs, Spitieri literally came back,” Wenham told The Nightly. “Somewhere within me lays a dormant Spitieri at all times.”

At one point, there had been idea floating around that they should shoot a scene of Johnny running with the bulls in Pamplona, in thongs, of course. “I stupidly said I was up for it. I’m sort of glad we didn’t do it” Wenham recalled, laughing.

Johnny is back in the sequel Spit, which reunites Wenham with director Jonathan Teplitzky, writer Chris Nyst and most of the original supporting cast including Gary Sweet, Helen Thomson, David Roberts and David Field.

Johnny wasn’t the lead of Gettin’ Square but he certainly is of the film that bears his name. It’s another madcap crime comedy that sees the character returning to Australia after two decades on the run overseas after faking his death.

He tries to enter the country with a false name but like most criminal endeavours Johnny touches, he’s not super successful. The border cops through him in a detention centre while flags are raised in the system. His old enemies know he’s alive and a threat.

The casual conversations about a Spitieri-led sequel started a decade ago, and the north star was always working out a story that would justify bringing the character back.

“We didn’t want to make Getting’ Square 2,” Wenham said. “There had to be a very solid reason why we were going to bring Johnny back and make the film.

“The premise and reason for the film’s existence was absolutely inspired. Aside from that, it was just incredibly funny and also contained some really fabulous moments of poignancy.”

That pathos may surprise those who remember the original film as a riotous gangster movie. But there was always a pinch of the sentimental in Gettin’ Square and Spit leans into it more by giving audiences real insight into who Johnny is and why he’s so much more than a drop-kick addict, albeit a wily one.

“We get to see more facets of Spitieri’s personality and find out that, for all his flaws, faults and idiosyncrasies, he’s the least judgmental person you will ever come across.

“It doesn’t matter how much money you have, your profession, religion or the colour of your skin. He’s going to treat you exactly the same. Essentially, the film is about mateship and what it is to be a good mate.”

Throwing Johnny into a detention centre allows Spit to introduce new characters and a new environment that gets right to the heart of our perceptions of Australian identity.

In the centre, Johnny meets a group of asylum seekers, including Jihad Kalif, played by New Zealand actor Arlo Green. Through Johnny’s open-heartedness, he teaches Jihad and the other asylum seekers how to be “Australian” which includes some off-kilter lexiconic lessons.

To Johnny, these men are good people who deserve to be treated with humanity. One scene of Jihad’s interview with border officers who try to accuse him of, among other things “queue jumping”, is particularly relevant and pointed.

Teplitzsky said it was writer Nyst’s inspired choice to set part of the story in the detention centre. “Chris (Nyst) always had this thing that he just didn’t get the whole immigration debate in this country,” the director said.

“If you build a culture in which one of the foundation stones is this idea of mateship, then it doesn’t equate, these two things of that approach to immigration and then trying to be everyone’s mate. So, he wanted to write something about that, and he had the brainwave of what better way to explore that than to put Spitieri in the middle of it.”

Wenham said Spit isn’t designed to be an overtly political film, but it is good timing in how the movie can be in conversation with an election year in which anti-immigration sentiment is never far from the headlines.

“(Spit) is a comedy but it’s a celebration of who we are. It’s a celebration of being Australian,” Wenham said.

“I cannot tell you how often we have heard through screenings of people from all different backgrounds, nationalities and whatever come up and say, ‘Thank you for celebrating the fact that, yes, we are a nation of people from all over the place, which makes us who we are’.

“I don’t think that’s controversial in any way, shape or form. The fact is, at the end of the film, people are buoyant. We had a woman in Queensland the other day who said, ‘Ohmigod, at the end of the film, I just wanted to hug the person next to me’.

“You know what, that’s a good thing.”

Who would’ve thought Johnny Spiteri can come to represent the best of us? That a kooky crime comedy with hijinks can be a platform for compassion?

Teplitzky added, “(He’s the) mythological character that we all, as Australians, like to believe we might be. I grew up (hearing) Australia is the most tolerant country in the world and as you get older, it’s much more nuanced than that. It’s not a black-and-white issue.

“What a mature country does is, it doesn’t go around waving the banner. It actually explores some of these questions and hopefully has some kind of reasonable adult discussion about it. Too often, it’s been such a polarised thing.

“In many ways, what we wanted to do was embrace that and basically go, ‘We’re all trying to do it together’, and that’s who Spitieri is. He’s an incredible magnet and catalyst, because as David said, he’s a completely non-judgemental character. A unifier.”

Spit is in cinemas on March 6