For the purposes of the story in this fake movie, Russell Crowe plays the role of J.P. Steele who is apparently an evil newspaper publisher, which is perfect, because that’s about the most 80s role you can think of for a villain.
His dialogue is even 80s movie villain levels of corny, but Crowe delivers it perfectly.
Newspapers aren’t exactly huge business these days and the idea of a newspaper publisher “owning” Australia is humorous all by itself.
Clearly, Crowe’s character is designed after another famous Australian media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, who did start his media empire with newspapers, and still owns a few, but has since made television a much bigger part of his business.