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Ironically Elliott’s latest film, A Few Best Men, is a very heterosexual take on the wedding comedy. Starring Xavier Samuel and Olivia Newton-John, it follows a groom and his three best men as they travel to the Australian outback for a wedding. “Xavier was fantastic,” Elliott raves. “It was a big challenge for him because he’s not a natural comedian – and he knew that. He had the most difficult role in the film – I remember telling him, ‘this is ‘Die Hard: The Wedding’, and you’re Bruce Willis.’ The outtakes are just him, one after the other, not being able to keep a straight face. The film is so stupid, but I’m really proud of it.”

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Australian comedy A Few Best Men raked in almost $1.9 million at the local box office in its opening weekend.

Directed by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), the film – about a wedding that goes wrong – grossed an impressive $1,834,283 across 235 screens. Opening on Australia Day, the comedy – in third position – posted a screen average of $7805.

Its weekend figures were bigger than last year’s two biggest films Red Dog ($1.78 million, 245 screens) andSanctum ($1.59 million, 252 screens).

Written by Death At A Funeral screenwriter Dean Craig, the Icon-distributed film excited exhibitors last year when it screened at the Australian International Movie Convention. It marked Icon’s first local film since Oranges and Sunshine (102 screens) in June, last year. In 2010, Icon distributed South Solitary (36 screens) and Triangle (4 screens), while in 2009 it released Mary And Max (49 screens), Disgrace (24 screens) and Blessed (15 screens).

“Stephan set out to make a film to entertain an audience and give them a good time at the movies,” Icon’s chief executive, Mark Gooder, said in a statement.

“The box office result over the weekend and the incredibly enthusiastic reaction in cinemas with people applauding the laughs tells us that A Few Best Men is going to stay around for a while.”

Actors Xavier Samuel (Twilight: Eclipse), Rebel Wilson (Bridesmaids), Kris Marshall (Death At A Funeral), Kevin Bishop (The Kevin Bishop Show) and Olivia Newton-John (Grease) make up the cast.

The film, touted as an “Australian version of The Hangover”, marks Elliott’s return to his home country after living in the UK for almost two decades.

In a statement today, Elliott added: “I left a depressed Europe, came back to Australia and just wanted to make people laugh. And our big silly ode to the late Blake Edwards looks like it’s made a lot of people happy this weekend”.

It was the second Australian film to be shot on the digital, high-end ARRI ALEXA and the first to use the camera’s RAW uncompressed data. To view the trailer, click here.

CRITIC’S RATING: 8/10

A SHEEP in drag, a runaway floral arrangement and Olivia Newton-John as you’ve never seen her before are some of the memorable moments of this riotous comedy in which the humour varies from the outrageous to the ridiculous.

Scripted by Death at a Funeral’s Dean Craig, A Few Best Men cleverly combines its culture clash and buddy themes with a wild tale embracing family secrets, a drug deal gone wrong and a romantic wedding filled with hilarious mishaps.

The director, Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), brings his trademark joie de vivre and wicked sense of humour, resulting in a sure fix if you need a laugh. It’s a perfect marriage of British and Australian humour; the refined, the raucous and the rip-roaringly rude collide in 97 minutes of mayhem.

It all starts with a romantic video clip shot on a Pacific island, when David (Samuel) and Mia (Laura Brent) decide to get married. The happy couple have only just met while on holidays; he is from England, she is from Australia. Back in London, the news of the impending nuptials in the Blue Mountains bombs with David’s three best friends, who are aghast, feeling as though he is deserting them. ”Holiday romances are meant to end at the airport, not the altar,” they moan. But they wouldn’t miss the wedding - although by the time the big day arrives, David might have wished they had.

Kris Marshall (Death at a Funeral) and Kevin Bishop (The Spanish Apartment), who play Tom and Graham respectively, make the film, such is their strength of presence and hilarious performances. Tom is the outspoken, hedonistic bachelor; Graham can’t help playing the fool sporting a Hitler-esque moustache (”It’s just the way my facial hair grows”); and Luke (Draxl) is the lovesick fool, dumped for someone rumoured to be missing an essential piece of the male anatomy.

Surprise, angst and resentment are squeezed into a jumbo jet on a single day before the wedding, as the groom-to-be and his best men make the long journey to the Federation house on the edge of the Blue Mountains.

Political satirist and comic Jonathan Biggins has plenty of hide (and front) as Jim Ramme, the politician father of the bride, whose prize merino sheep Ramsy (a splendid specimen) steals scene after scene - dressed in bra, knickers and fire-engine red lipstick or being lowered surreptitiously from a first-floor window.

Poor Ramsy is the butt of many jokes, literally at times: in one scene Graham gets up to his armpit at Ramsy’s other end to recover cocaine-filled condoms swallowed by the sheep. Some of it is pretty risque. But Elliott, Australia’s loveable enfant terrible, has a knack of making everything feel cheeky rather than sordid.

There are numerous well-constructed, funny sequences - such as the scene in which Steve le Marquand’s (Underbelly) semi-naked, tattooed drug dealer Ray takes a shine to Graham or when Graham tries to ”convert” Mia’s supposedly lesbian sister Daphne (Wilson). In an inspired piece of casting, Olivia Newton-John is a knockout as the (initially) straitlaced mother of the bride, later showing that appearances can be deceiving.

The humour plays like a horn that is honked at both low and high decibels: subtle and not-so. It’s wacky and crass in equal portions. Every scene is bursting with colourful ideas and each character looks as though they could star in their own movie.

The film looks a treat and the Blue Mountains setting impresses. Elliott keeps the pace moving and all the production values are excellent.

This is a corker of a film with a feel-good guarantee.

STARRING OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN, TIM DRAXL, REBEL WILSON, KRIS MARSHALL, XAVIER SAMUEL, KEVIN BISHOP, STEVE LE MARQUAND

RATED MA

OPENS THURSDAY

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert  director cast his long-time friend in his new film, A Few Best Men,  but didn’t know what to expect.

“We were shooting in the Blue Mountains and one night we took her (Olivia) to the pub and we literally had to make a circle around her, arm-to-arm, just to stop people trying to get to her,” Stephan says.

“One woman actually bit me as she tried to push her way through. We’re talking about a 70-year-old woman … and there were six-year-old kids doing it as well. She’s just an icon and I’ve never worked with anyone of that status.”

While filming wrapped early this year, Stephan and Olivia have been feverishly working on the movie’s soundtrack, which he says contains at least “four top-10 hits”.

In town last night for a special Penley Estate-sponsored screening of his new Aussie comedy, Stephan was full of praise for the movie’s other star, Adelaide boy Xavier Samuel.

“People just can’t take their eyes off him and the camera loves him,” he says.

“He’s got that star factor. It’s an X- factor; it exists and he’s got it.

“He was born with it.”

A close friend of Penley Estate winemaker Kym Tolley, Stephan used their wines for all of the wedding scenes in the film.

“It would have been easy to go with a bigger label but I thought no, I’m keeping this thing in-house. I promised him a few close-ups,” Stephan says with a laugh.

A Few Best Men  will be in cinemas on Australia Day.

Newton John walks down the aisle for film