[4] In order to cast the film, Cameron spent three months teaching drama classes in schools in western Sydney to find young actors.
Cameron hoped to follow the adventures of his lead character in other films similar to that of Antoine Doinel in the movies of François Truffaut but Fast Talking was not sufficiently successful at the box office.
[1] However he did subsequently make another film about young people, Crime of the Decade, for the ABC, which he called an extension of his work for Fast Talking.
"[7] Writing in Australian Cinema Adrian Martin says "Although Fast Talking is ultimately a fairly middle-of-the-road social issue film, and one that has been little cited critically since its release, it does have a number of distinctive, original elements that anticipate subsequent realist teen films, especially Jean-Claude Brisseau's De bruit et de fureur (The Sound and the Fury, 1988)"[8] Writing in Cinema Papers Geoff Mayer concludes "Cameron has managed to elicit natural performances from the three young actors and they add a strong sense of verisimilitude to the film.
"[10] The Bulletin's Sandra Hall gives it a positive review and says "Fast Talking confirms [Cameron's] talent for catching the chancy rythmns of life on the edge.
"[11] In 2017 Street Machine looked back at the movie and gave it a verdict of 4/5 "A sadly forgotten and underrated Australian cinematic gem, Fast Talking mixes laugh-out-loud hilarity with poignant drama.