Lowdown Dirty Criminals: Film Review

Cast: James Rolleston, Rebecca Gibney, Robbie Magasiva, Cohen Holloway, Samuel Austin, Scott Wills

Director: Paul Murphy

Wrapping comedy caper with a criminal edge, Lowdown Dirty Criminals is a strong contender for a ramshackle, relatively easy-on-the-eye Kiwi take on a Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels-style story.

Boy's Rolleston is Freddy, a pizza delivery boy who wants more from life, but who in the opening frames, appears to be in a Reservoir Dogs-style standoff with a bunch of low-lives. Using quick cuts and flashy on-screen graphics, Murphy begins to spin his somewhat shallow and scatty but amiable tale.

When Freddy and hapless mate Marvin decide they want to be small time crims, they end up in the thrall of bald-headed baddie and small time mafioso Spiggs, and on his payroll. But after a series of stuff-ups, the duo find themselves with one deadly mission - kill a man or be killed themselves.

Obviously, part of the low-rent charm of Lowdown Dirty Criminals is that this duo is beyond inept, and unable to do what's needed, so the film becomes about how they deal with the confluence of bad luck which surrounds and swirls around them as the deadline approaches.

And while occasionally the film goes for the gross out slapstick and oddly underwritten characters (with one of those bordering dangerously close to racial stereotyping), its short run time, and endless energy and penchant for the puerile, coupled with a very likeable Rolleston rediscovering the form he lost in Pork Pie, make it a sordidly scrappy, yet undeniably entertaining watch.

Coupled with some laugh-out-loud one liners and a playing-against-type Gibney clearly having a ball as kingpin the Upholsterer, the film's vicarious pleasures and goofy charm keep it going into the final strait.

There may be elements of a NZ version of Pineapple Express and every other inept criminal story you've ever seen, but thanks to the use of small locations, a tight script, and injection of energy and charm, this gun-toting screwball caper is a relative cinematic local diamond in among a recent collection of celluloid rough.

Fast and Furious: Crossroads: PS4 Review

Developed by Slightly Mad Studios

Platform:PS4

Released by Bandai Namco

The Fast and Furious genre should be an easy one to adapt for a console generation.

After all, its cartoony approaches to violence and action, coupled with outrageous stunts, makes it prime fodder for some disposable racing-led fun.

Yet, even with its vocal touches from franchise stalwarts Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez, Fast and Furious Crossroads feels like a rushed PS3 game pushed on to a next gen platform.

Thanks to uncanny valley graphics and dialogue that's as flat as pancake, the opening sequence of the action film turned game isn't off to the strongest start. Dom Toretto and Letty are on the case of an informer, who has a tank and a desire to speed away. It all leads to a conspiracy involving an international terrorist group known as the Tadakhul.

Using trademark harpoons, wheel spikes and defying gravity, the franchise's penchant for the ludicrous is there from the get go - but after letting you cycle between Dom and Letty, the game switches to two relatively dour other characters , Vienna and Cam, who have little edge.

Weirdly for a racing sim where you're able to achieve Need for Speed levels of utter carnage on other cars (sometimes at the lowest speed), you yourself can garner barely a scrape, careering as you do off walls, fences, other parts of the road and other drivers. There's little consistent realism here, and in among the less-than-impressive graphics, the cons pile up much more than the pros.

Racing between points A and B and using some quick time events, and button-mashing, Fast and Furious Crossroads is less a Fast and Furious experience, and more a drive-by massacre, with issues accentuated by the brevity of its total gameplay.

The game lacks the necessary campaign to pull it through, and while there are hints of what it could be thanks to the range of talent involved, what's committed to the console screens is more a car crash than a pole position playing experience.

Skully: PS4 Review

Developed by Modus Games, Finish Line Games

Platform: PS4

For those gamers of a certain age, the words Marble Madness will strike fear into hearts and cause basic RSI flashbacks.

Having to roll a ball around a series of vertiginous alleyways and being prone to gravity, the arcade game was a massively frustrating and thrilling experience from the 1980s.

The moment Skully begins, there are echoes of Marble Madness 

Mixed bizarrely with the golem properties of Knack, Skully is a curious platformer that's crippled by its camera, but soars when the rolling gameplay comes together.

On a mysterious remote island, a skull washes up on shore and is reawakened by an enigmatic deity. 

Dubbed Skully, the newly reanimated being has been summoned to intervene in a war between the deity's three siblings, whose quarrel jeopardizes the island they call home.

It's a simple enough story, and Skully delivers it quite well in terms of the basics, as you roll through rather linear levels.

However, as the camera occasionally impedes your view, the rolling can be limited to where you can barely see where you're going to go next. And given some respawn points are quite few and far in 

between, the frustration levels are likely to rise substantially if death comes and it's not your fault.

But the whirling camera can be used to your advantage.

As you roll your skull around curved areas, the camera can be whirled around so you never once lose your line of sight - it's dizzying stuff when it works.

Equally, the idea of turning Skully into a golem monster via clay pits is nicely done too - the fluid gameplay of the clay creatures means that any gamers of any level can pick up and play.

However, given some of the leaping around is extremely hard to do, precision timing is needed and the gameplay is from time to time punishing, it's possible younger minds may not have the staying power to see the game through. But the response time of the controls is impressive and rolling feels fluid enough.

Which presents somewhat of a quandary for Skully - older players may feel the game's somewhat archaic mechanics aren't enough for what they need.

All in all Skully's a fairly pleasant way to pass a few afternoons - long term, the seeds of something brilliant are here, but they've yet to fully germinate. But there's enough of a premise and a twist to keep even the most jaded of gamers engaged.

 Ad Astra: Neon Movie Review

More a Freudian rumination on masculinity that's set in space, James Gray's Ad Astra takes on the vast reaches of the great beyond and delivers a stunning piece of world-building as ever there's been on a universal scale.

A restrained and almost muted Pitt is Roy McBride, the son of an accomplished astronaut Cliff McBride (Lee Jones). Constantly living in his shadow, Roy is sent to find the missing McBride senior who's presumed lost in space somewhere near Neptune, after a series of electrical surges threatens to wipe life from the solar system.

But there's ambiguity over whether McBride senior is to blame for the surges or is trying to stop them...All of which puts the father and son on a collision course both have clearly been trying to avoid their entire lives.

Gray and Pitt conjure up a world in the near future that's as believable as anything seen in the likes of Gravity and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

With vertiginous shots early on giving way to more intimate and internal moments, Gray's film ponders on what it's like to be man, how to deal with an estranged father and how to connect to others. (There's a delicious irony the space mission is about finding life outside of Earth when it's more ground-bound matters that anchor the movie.)

Pitt's muted throughout, prone to his inner monologue rather than espousing reams of dialogue; and when the break comes somewhere in the film, Pitt delivers an emotional range that's as devastating to his character as it needs to be to the audience.

Gray's space world is fascinating - and while there are moments of action set on the moon and thanks to the unease of an unexpected mayday call, the slow calculated script and delivery thereof lead to plenty of payoffs.

It's not perfect though - while the mundanities of commercial space travel are recreated with ease (fast food companies and their neon signs sit along the likes of Virgin on the Moon), some of the script fails its women. Tyler gets a thankless role as a faceless wife (though this is perhaps the point given how Pitt's character can't connect with others in his life) and Ruth Negga shines all too briefly as the conspiracy elements of the mystery are ratcheted up on Mars.

The film delivers much subtlety on male relationships, but it's also content to dispatch some rote lines such as the double-edged "We are all we've got" to satiate those less inclined to the more thoughtful leanings of what's on screen.

Ultimately, Ad Astra works best in its first two thirds - its delivery of some answers and some leaps of logic in the latter stages cause the foundations to flounder.

However, in terms of a rumination on the folly of man, it's second to none - and one of the most arrestingly visual, thoughtful and immersive well-executed experiences that cinema has had to offer. 

 Hustlers: Neon Movie Review

Based on a New York magazine article, Hustlers' tale of empowerment of ladies and taking back what's theirs should in theory, be a home run.

Set against a backdrop of a group of strippers headed up by matriarch Ramona (JLo, in no nonsense taking mood) Constance Wu stars as Destiny, a new-to-town stripper, who's taken under Ramona's wing.

When the financial crisis of 2008 hits the strip clubs and stops the ladies from earning the coin as the businessmen stay away, Ramona and Destiny hit upon a new scam to make money when times get tough....

Hustlers is a fine film in parts (specifically its aesthetics), but one that fails to fully seize on what makes a story like this soar.

While it could be seen as a female POV counterpoint piece to Martin Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street, Hustlers' prime failure is in fully setting up the friendships and family elements early on which would inform the emotional bond you feel to the characters when times get tough.

It's a relatively fatal flaw, in among the incessant gyrations and tasteful nudity that never once falls into male gaze territory (thankfully).

The shallow skin-deep approach informs much of the aesthetics of the club, as well as the approach to the characters - motivations are about as fleshed-out as the fully-covered ladies and Scafaria's failure to demonise anyone makes for an intriguing lack of moral compass as the movie plays out.

It's particularly noticeable and pertinent in the final third of the film, which meanders and drifts into duller territory as the narrative framing devices push the story into a she said, she said approach necessary for the magazine interview format to play out.

Wu is fairly solid in this, but talk of Lopez for Oscar glory for her role as Ramona is misplaced at best - her Ramona is a variation of any strong women role she's had before, but unfortunately, there's not enough dramatic meat in the Hustlers' bones to really justify it.

When the end comes, you may be surprised how hollow it feels and how emotionally lacking it is - if anything, this is the ultimate scam perpetrated by Hustlers, a film so wrapped up in all its own take on capitalism and family that it falls apart under any kind of prolonged scrutiny.

Last Christmas: Neon Movie Review

A contrived and loose retelling of a Christmas Carol, Last Christmas draws inspiration from the Wham! song of the same name.

A game Clarke pratfalls and perks her way through the story as Kate, a mess of a girl, dressed permanently as an Elf and awash in one night stands, homelessness and booze, following recovery from an illness.

Down on her luck in London, Kate spies the suave Tom (Crazy Rich Asians' Golding, who gets to be charming and pointlessly pirouetting around London for no real reason) and the pair strike up an unlikely friendship.

She the cynic, he the optimist, encouraging her to look up at the sky - even though her first doing of this results in pigeon poo in the eye - much like the film for the audience, to be frank.

You can see where Last Christmas is going a mile off - it's the kind of candy covered schmaltz soaked affair that would work well in the festive season, when you're stranded with family, boozed up and don't want to talk to them.

Throwing in Brexit jabs via way of London patriotism, mocking the homeless for being quirky, and plastering the film with shots of London streets in the winter, it's a shock there's no Hugh Grant cameo or Love Actually crossover in among the syrupy sentiment.

And yet, were it not for a duly game Emilia Clarke, Last Christmas would be a real festive turkey.

(It's hard to credit Golding with anything other than being smooth or suave as that's what the script demands of him, and he delivers with warmth and ease, giving Tom and Kate's bond a nice glow.)

Clarke however is called on to shoulder the burden of a cloying script that continues to one-up itself for weak gags, goofy edges and generally being underwritten. And she delivers her hot mess with warmth, chutzpah, and the kind of commitment that's needed to sell the sentiment and holes. (Of which a lot emerge in the final act).

It's the latest film to be fashioned around music, from Blinded by the Light to Yesterday, and while they all suffer from the necessity of shoehorning the music in, Last Christmas does a little the same, but can be forgiven on some level, because of the time of year it's aiming for.

There's a cheesy cornball edge to Last Christmas, but it's sadly not enough one way or another to push this into so-bad-it's-good-territory. Instead, it just is, and were it not for Clarke, the film would have crumbled into a bad Christmas hangover. 

Joker: Neon Movie Review

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix. Robert de Niro, Zazie Beetz, Marc Maron, Frances Conroy
Director: Todd Phillips

Intense, haunting, disturbing, unsettling, uncomfortable, uncompromising, deeply indebted to Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and King of Comedy, Hangover director Todd Phillips' take on Joker is nothing without Joaquin Phoenix's Arthur Fleck.

An alienated clown who's trying to get by in a struggling Gotham that's grappling with a descent into garbage strikes and class divides, Fleck is hanging on by the skin of his teeth, scrabbling from day-to-day with a world he's growing ever-more distant from and from humanity on every level.

Fleck's grip on reality is further tested by his relationship with his ailing mother (Conroy) - though there's some light in the form of a neighbour (Deadpool's Beetz) and in local talkshow host Murray Franklin (De Niro riffing on his own Murray Pupkin), both offering Fleck a connection to life and a future.

But as the class war and societal concerns strike, Fleck finds himself at a personal profound crossroads...

Joker is less a comic book film, more an intensely choreographed dance into madness and destruction, that forces you into sympathies for the devil.

Central to the maelstrom is an emaciated Phoenix, his whole frame racked by the condition that forces him to laugh when it's less than ideal, and whose laughs teeter dangerously close to sobs of desperation. Lithe, lissom and genuinely haunting, the incendiary Phoenix owns the screen from the moment the film starts to the time it ends.

While there are nods to the wider universe, Joker is less about the clown prince, more a damning indictment of a man falling apart with parallels to the politically uncertain times we currently live in.

It's here that Phillips and Phoenix team up to make something that's an unravelling in our narcissistic times, a dangerous mirror to edges of our society that may galvanise some more than it should or ought to. There are plenty of scenes of Phoenix's Fleck struggling - be it up endless flights of stairs, or sitting in empty rooms, Phillips doesn't scrimp on the visual imagery.

It's not all perfect - some of the supporting characters feel underused in the extreme slow burn of Phoenix's spotlight; much of the feel of the film is ripped from Scorsese's grimy playbook and there are questions over the mental health portrayal within.

But Joker is visceral and uncomfortable in the way cinema can get under your skin; this character study is one of the year's compelling best, a sickening portrait that's unsettling and unnerving. 

Shirley: Film Review

Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Logan Lerman, Odessa Young, Michael Stuhlbarg

Director: Josephine Decker

Feeling like a woozy Gothic psychological romance rather than a detailed relationship drama, Josephine Decker's Shirley sees The Handmaid's Tale's Elisabeth Moss as writer Shirley Jackson (who went on to pen The Haunting of Hill House).

Unable to find her muse, agoraphobic and constantly in bed, drink or cigarette in hand, Shirley's hit a stumbling block. Into her life, at the behest of her professor partner (Stuhlbarg, in a vaguely monstrous role), comes youngsters Rose and her academic husband Fred (Young and Lerman) to help out around the house and at the college.

But Shirley is reticent to have them around, and Fred becomes frustrated at his lack of progression at the college. However, the more Shirley and Fred dig in, the more Rose awakens from her repression.

Shirley isn't a bad character study by any stretch of the imagination.

Thanks to Moss' wild-eyed approach to Jackson, the film thrives when she's on screen - and it positively sparks when she's paired up with Young as the two crackle against each other and against years of repression and expectation.

Hand-held camerawork, close ups, and a haunting OST along with a mystery of a missing girl all make for an intoxicating mix in Shirley, and Young and Moss deserve kudos for their time on screen.

Moss in particular revels in her character's messiness, and the script doesn't hold back from showing her flaws, but equally, it doesn't criticise her for them either.

A fascinating study of genius and an arthouse approach by Decker give the film the sheen it needs - and offers the audience a different way at looking at tortured authors.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout: PS4 Review

Developed by Mediatonic

Published by Devolver Digital

Platform: PS4 (through PSPlus August game giveaways)

The multiplayer genre is one that's already stuffed with entrants.

Generally though, they are shooters of some description. And with the likes of Fortnite and Overwatch still reigning supreme, there's been a hole in the market place for a good solid family-led inclusive multiplayer game.

Enter Mediatonic's Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, with its cartoony blobby bright colours mash up of fun and silliness.

Essentially an online version of 70s UK TV staple, It's A Knockout and elements of WipeOut USA, the extremely colourful and amusing Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is aimed squarely at fun, and delivers in more than spades.

While its first weekend has been plagued by server issues due to a surge demand (global lockdowns and a desire to play online will do that), Mediatonic's done more than enough to get the game back up and running to cover the 59 players needed to take you on.

Over five rounds of what appear simple games, it's up to you to come first and take the win. Progress through each round without being eliminated to make it through to the final game where you can be crowned winner.

Sounds simple, but in practice, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is anything but - though annoyingly, it's highly addictive and charming enough to keep sucking you back in.

Using physics as well as a bit of old fashioned luck, you'll need to scoot around various challenges to try and win.

From an obstacle course where you have to jump over seesaws, to a Rocket League inspired football match, the games are simple and easy to dive into. That's part of the real charm of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, it's so frustratingly simple that when you get knocked out by a wrong move or a simple issue of gravity, you immediately want to dive back in.

As a solo game, it's solid and entertaining - with 59 strangers all out for the same thing, it can get competitive. But it's a bit harder on the so-called team games where you're expected to work together - especially if you are without headphones as collaboration goes out the window.

A lack of a local multiplayer game that's offline sets a worrying alarm bell off for the game's future - who knows what's ahead in 6 months' time. But Mediatonic is teasing that this is only season one - however, long term freemium games do face the faddish desires of the players who desert the servers like magpies once the newest shiniest thing comes along or the old fave they dived into launches a new season amid hype.

Ultimately, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is disposable family fun, that's worth diving into whatever your age - and these days for multiplayer, you can rarely recommend that.  Hopefully, it'll keep people entertained for many seasons to come, thanks to an ease of play, a simplicity of design and a rocksolid foundation of execution.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout was played on PlayStation Plus via a code provided for the service by PlayStation New Zealand

 Skully is Available Now!

 

Restore Peace in Charming Platforming Adventure, Skully!

Now Available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One

 

Join a Headstrong Hero for a Roll through a Gorgeous but Troubled Paradise

 

 

Indie publisher Modus Games and developer Finish Line Games today released Skully, a reanimated skull’s delightful platforming adventure across a magical island, on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

 

Skully’s accompanying launch trailer is packed with gameplay which perfectly demonstrates our cranium-sized star’s agility and knack for wielding clay-boosted powers. Pools of magical clay can be found while hopping through this colourful land, lending strength in battles and opening new routes through Skully’s beautiful world.

 

Get a sense of what Skully can do by watching the full launch trailer here: 

 

 

FAST & FURIOUS CROSSROADS VIDEO GAME AVAILABLE NOW

FAST & FURIOUS CROSSROADS VIDEO GAME AVAILABLE NOW  
 

Fast & Furious Crossroads, a team-based, vehicular-heist action game set in the adrenaline-fueled Fast & Furious universe, developed by Slightly Mad Studios and published by BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Europe in collaboration with Universal Games and Digital Platforms, is now available for  PlayStation® 4, Xbox One and PC.

The Fast & Furious Crossroads story mode expands the Fast & Furious universe—with Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez and Tyrese Gibson reprising their roles as Dom Toretto, Letty Ortiz, and Roman Pearce in an action-packed adventure set across stunning global locations, including Athens, Barcelona, Morocco and New Orleans. Joining the cast are Sonequa Martin-Green (Star Trek: Discovery, The Walking Dead), Asia Kate Dillon (Billions, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum) and Peter Stormare (Fargo, Prison Break).

Players who purchase the game before September 7, 2020 will receive the Launch Pack,* which includes the inimitable Mitsubishi Eclipse, along with three unique wraps. This content will add to the novel 3 vs 3 vs 3 multiplayer mode that features three-faction, team-based, vehicular action in a variety of high-stakes missions.

Packed with gadgets, high-octane heists and iconic vehicles, Fast & Furious Crossroads puts players in the driver’s seat of the non-stop cinematic-style action of the Fast & Furious saga and is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC Digital.

 

For more information, or to keep up with the latest news, please visit: 

 

Website: www.fastandfuriouscrossroads.com 
Facebook: http://facebook.com/FastandFuriousCrossroads 
Instagram: http://instagram.com/FastandFuriousCrossroads 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/FastFuriousCR

The Legend of Baron To'a: DVD review

The Legend of Baron To'a: DVD review

Ambition on a budget meets a degree of heart and family legacy in director Kiel McNaughton's debut.

It's the story of Latukefu's Fritz, an Aussie-based businessman who needs to sell the old family home in New Zealand to finance a deal back home. Landing in his old cul-de-sac, he finds some things have changed since the days when his wrestling father, Baron To'a, ruled the roost.

But when a local gang makes off with his dad's prize wrestling belt, Fritz's uncle refuses to sell the home until it's returned - sending Fritz on a collision course with his own personal and troubled history.

The Legend of Baron To'a starts with two of the actors (Latukefu and Tui) apologising to the Tongan King for what they're about to see, but exalting him that they wanted to show a true to life story.

In truth, the cul-de-sac where the story takes place could be anywhere where bad apples have set in and the rot's begun, and where family and community have been torn apart by crime and deliquency.

On that front, McNaughton and his writing team have seized on a vein of veracity that's got plenty to be mined for dramatic effect.

Yet in parts, The Legend of Baron To'a lacks some of the dramatic KO that it's clearly going for - largely in part due to the writing of Latukefu's Fritz. Prone to going all Beautiful Mind and writing on windows, Fritz is a hard character to really care about, despite the Robbie Magasiva-like Latukefu's best acting intentions. And certainly when the chips are down, there's more a sense that he was entitled to what was coming, rather than favouring this underdog.

A cartoon-like element underpins some of the brutal beatdowns, with not one ounce of blood spilled throughout, despite some of the violence on show - it's moments like this that take the film out of the reality and grittiness it aspires to.

And yet, in its flaws, this genial pic packs in heart when it needs to - particularly with moments of Tui's To'a, a legend in his own cul-de-sac. Glimpsed in flashbacks and in old videos of wrestling, it's clear there's a legacy here, and Tui makes the absolute most of the limited screentime.

Equally, Laga'aia's subtle and simple portrait of the long-time dweller offering advice to the newcomer is a stellar performance, one doused in subtlety. Laga'aia lifts some of The Legend of Baron To'a's shortcomings when it truly counts. Billed as a comedy, the laughs are, to be frank, in short shrift, and The Legend of Baron To'a is more a family dramedy than anything else.

With fight scenes that resemble UK's World of Sport Wrestling TV series, McNaughton makes great fist of the small spaces to bring the action alive, clearly channeling Tongan Ninja and Kung Fu Hustle.

Overall, while The Legend of Baron To'a may lack a few killer KO moves throughout and would have benefited from a tighter script, it does proffer a solid night out for NZ cinemagoers.

Vivarium: Blu Ray Review

Irish director Lorcan Finnegan's Vivarium has been compared to Black Mirror, because of look and tone.

Though this tale of two would-be surbanites (Jesse Eisenberg, Imogen Poots) finding themselves stranded in a housing estate after a visit to an oddball estate agent's, has more in common with a darker Tales of The Unexpected or Inside No 9 via Escher.

Gemma (Poots, digging deep when needed and yielding great rewards) and Tom (Eisenberg, increasingly detached and desperate) are wannabe homeowners, given the chance to visit a new housing estate called "Yonder".

When their creepy estate agent disappears while they're looking around the house which is "near enough and yet far enough away", the pair find themselves stuck when they can't escape Yonder....

Finnegan creates an atmosphere of unease early on in the piece, after a cutesy opening showcases both Gemma and Tom's relationship and their approach to life.

But with some digital trickery and some genuinely unsettling moments (it's wise to go into this unspoiled, and with a blank mind approach), what Finnegan crafts is something that haunts you after you've seen it.

Colour palettes add to the cinema of unease, and the sense of suspense as the rug threatens to be pulled out from under you at any moment. Parts of the film occasionally feel like the idea's been stretched as far as it can with its essentially two-hander cast, but just when the film seems to be out of breath, an audacious third act moment visually jolts you back into it.

There's a satire in Vivarium here both of suburban expectations and family expectations - albeit poured through a prism of genuine discomfort.

It's heady, thrilling, exciting, frustrating and audacious - Vivarium truly messes with you - but its ride is well worth hopping on.

This Town: Film Review

Cast: David White, Robyn Malcolm, Rima Te Wiata, Alice May Connolly

Director: David White

The most frustrating thing about David White's dramedy about a killer who's trying to find love in a rural town is that it never quite leans into what exactly it wants to be.

Blending goofy romance a la Eagle vs Shark while ignoring the fact it's heavily based on the David Bain story (a family's found shot dead, one sole survivor and a lot of questions dogging them through the years), This Town had some real potential to launch New Zealand cinema after the onset of Coronavirus crippled the cinematic world.

But This Town doesn't own enough of its ingredients to get it out of the country of quirky characters mire it sets itself into.

It's the tale of Sean (White, a fairly solid and deadpan when needed lead), a suspected murderer who wants to simply find the one. Signing up to a dating app on the advice of mates, Sean meets Alice May Connolly's Casey, one of the few girls who's unaware of Sean's past...

However, in smalltown New Zealand, the past is always around the corner...

Initially, This Town proffers some solid laughs, thanks to the deadpan delivery of lines and actions of a man who's clearly socially at odds with what's expected of him - and some inspired sight gags.

Yet once Robyn Malcolm's determined-to-get-her-man former police officer Pam comes in, the film loses a bit of focus and goes slightly off the rails as the weaker material starts to flail in the wind. It's not to pour scorn on Malcolm's performance, as she shows some strong comedy chops when required - her pairing with Rima Te Wiata as a local crime writer is inspired, but there's not enough of it in the film.

Hints of the comedy potential arrive towards the end with some clearly improvised dialogue poitning frustratingly to what could have been. 

This Town never quite knows what it wants to be, and none more so than when the truth comes out, and the dramatic reveal is played too quickly to have the heft it needed. 

Despite some wonderfully realised bucolic shots, and some adroit capturing of the small-town vibe, some of the issue with This Town lies with the character who should be the lead in it is frequently sidelined, gradually robbing them of the screen time that's needed and emotional arc that's necessary.

Working better for character moments, rather than a cohesive whole, This Town feels more suited to a finely honed web series, rather than a full-length film. It's certainly not a Town you want to reside in long-term.

The Girl on the Bridge: NZIFF Review

Director Leanne Pooley's sensitively handled doco about suicide is a painfully honest affair that deserves all the oxygen it can muster.

Centring around 21-year-old Jazz Thornton, who herself tried repeated suicide attempts, Pooley's piece starts a conversation about the stigmatised issue.

Jazz created the webseries Jessica's Tree in 2019 after the death of a friend she couldn't save - Pooley decided to come along to document the process of the making of the piece.

Thanks to Thornton's honesty and the camera's unswerving eye, The Girl on the Bridge almost feels insufferably intrusive. 

The resilience shines through, though and while the documentary occasionally feels like it could do with a bit more of a trim to avoid repetition, the fact it starts the conversation deserves to be applauded and supported.

In among it all is Jazz Thornton, a young woman who has put it all on the line and out in the public eye.

Heartbreaking scenes show the continual pressure she's under, with people constantly messaging her threatening to take their own lives. Pooley's camerawork uses a lot of Thornton's confessional footage, but in moments where Thornton is on the edge and breaks down at her frustration at the system, the film does feel like it's on the edge and teetering.

But it's here that Pooley shows her strength and her clever approach to the film - it's sensitively handled in its use of unflinching honesty.

The Girl On The Bridge is an important documentary to view, as it gives a window into a world that's all too common and all too rarely discussed in the wider media world. 

However, it would be nothing without Jazz Thornton - she may refute the fact her resilience is the key factor here, and that it's important to have the conversations. 

But by showing her own heart and soul, coupled with Pooley's calm and methodical approach to the material, The Girl on the Bridge is a powerful piece that demonstrates the complexities and the flaws of a system, but never loses sight of the humanity of its central subject and its painfully raw subject matter.

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band: NZIFF Review

Those not familiar with Robbie Robertson and The Band will get a great intro with this doco from director Daniel Roher.

Unfortunately, it's somewhat one-sided given Robbie is the only surviving member of the band who chooses to engage publicly.

However, what emerges from Roher's somewhat hagiographic piece is the feeling that Robertson has grown extremely reflective later in life as he looks back over what occurred.

Using Robertson's Canadian drawl to the maximum effect and some quality archive footage of the invention of rockabilly and the dawning of rock'n'roll, the doco spools out with some high profile fans emerging.

The likes of Martin Scorsese talk of how their lives have been changed by the rockers, but that's all supplementary to proceedings as Robertson takes the floor to amuse us all with stories of The Band's rising and inevitable fall.

It may be one-sided throughout, but with a veritable swagger of a soundtrack and a series of vignettes worth engaging with, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band is an amiable enough amble through the annals of a band's rise and downfall.

Ema: NZIFF Review

Director Pablo Larrain's fiery Ema is a film where bad people struggle for your support.

A bleach-blonde Mariana Di Girolamo is Ema, a dancer whose marriage to Gael Garcia Bernal's Gaston is on the rocks after a child they adopted was taken away from them.

Self-destructive in extremis, but looking for the need to become a mother, Ema decides to throw everything up into the air, and pursue her own desires and dreams...

Ema is supposed to be a film of a soul of a fiery nature burning brightly and looking out for number one, but the narcissistic Ema is a distinctly unlikeable protagonist, with a way of rankling and needling viewers rather than getting support.

Fortunately, in Mariana Di Girolamo, Larrain has found a mesmerising actor who transcends the darker nastier edges of the material and who elicits sympathy in less obvious circumstances.

Which is a good thing, because large swathes of Ema fight very hard to get you offside

From character motivations that are hard to fathom to narrative leaps which are utterly ludicrous and almost contemptible, Ema is a film that's stretching credibility to say the least.

However, Larrain's eye for some stunning visuals and outstanding colours ensure Ema is worth enduring - and certainly while realism takes a battering, Mariana Di Girolamo's burning star makes it just about worth sitting through.

The County: NZIFF Review

Mustering as much fire and brimstone as a story of the little people can, Rams director Grímur Hákonarson delivers a quietly empowering tale.

It's the story of Inga (a fire-in-her-belly Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir) a farmer in the Nordic lands, whose life is overturned when her husband dies driving a truck. With the farm owned by the Co-operative run in the region and with outside trade stifled by the organisation, Inga starts a rebellion when she likens the group to the Mafia.

As the one-person-against-the-machine battle intensifies, Hákonarson chooses to centre the fight on the dignified but indignant Inga as she takes on the Co-op and its apparently corrupt CEO.

But this is no all-guns-blazing kind of affair.

Instead, as with Rams, Hákonarson elects to slowly build the tension and seeds the story of dissent from within long slow scenes that are character-led and predominantly revealing by their subtleties.

Egilsdóttir may be older and ravaged by time and tribulations of debt upon the farm, but not once does this timeless tale of David vs Goliath go for cliche. 

As the crusade begins against corporate bullying, Hákonarson never shifts focus away from Inga, her resolution and the plight of the smaller man within the valleys. In many ways, The County is not a new story, but with long wide shots, a simmering tension found in smaller communities and by never bedevilling any involved, Hákonarson delivers something akin to a tragedy as it plays out against the bleakness of the valleys.

It may end positively, but The County wins the festival for the bleakest happy ending delivered to the screen yet. In many ways, it could feel like a paean for the New Zealand leg of the festival itself - shorn of conventional routes, and taking on the uncertainties of Covid-19 on the cinema, Hákonarson's The County ends up being a resounding success and quietly moving salute to the common man and woman caught up in the machinations of the big corporate machine.

The Kingmaker: NZIFF Review

A chilling indictment of power and delusion, Lauren Greenfield's The Kingmaker works wonders by never turning its central character into the villain she truly is.

With a sensitive lens and a steady hand, Greenfield's gradually gobsmacking documentary places the focus squarely on Imelda Marcos and the ill-gotten gains and political powers at play in the Philippines.

With a side-focus on the rise of son Bongbong Marcos and a sudden end inclusion of President Duterte's rise to power, The Kingmaker leaves scenes of utter power and disgust to swirl in your gut.

Opening with Marcos handing out obscene amounts of money to those mobbing her, and then doing something similar in a hospital while showing little to no empathy to the suffering around her and caused by herself and her husband, Greenfield slowly damns Imelda into the pantheons of monsters.

Ego, desires to be seen on the world stage and utter contempt build in a heady concoction as the doco plays out, and while Greenfield never chooses to damn Marcos, she certainly delivers Marcos enough rope to essentially hang herself.

Hubris and arrogance rise to the fore - from Imelda Marcos' desire to bring animals from Africa to Philippines on a whim to the secret puppetry behind Bongbong's rise to the top, what emerges is a truly chilling damnation of a country unable to shake itself from inexorable corruption.

Utterly compelling, truly frightening and likely to leave your blood boiling, The Kingmaker is essential documentary-making, a terrifying mirror to a society unable to ever shake itself free - and a piece of film-making that exudes quiet power in every frame.

Carrion: Nintendo Switch Game Review

Developer: Phobia Game Studios

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Platform: Nintendo Switch

Slither, slather and slaughter.

Phobia Game Studio’s delightful Carrion allows you to love the alien as you take control of an amorphous blob, hellbent on causing chaos in an underground lair.

Initially miniscule and able to slime your way around the caverns, Carrion grants you the chance to channel all your rage in what developers say is a reverse-horror.

As you cling to the walls, humans try and stop you - but using tendrils and your slimy nefarious desires, you can devour them.

Doing so and consuming them gifts you extra girth (though it does make you more of a target later on as the fight back takes shape.)

Through a series of environmental puzzles and access to minor upgrades to your eco-skeleton, Carrion grants you the chance to deliver carnage how you want.

See a human that looks troublesome? Flick a web and pin them to the wall before devouring them.

Graphically, Carrion is basic at best, looking more pixelated than crystal clear.

But given how fluid your beastie is that barely matters. 

Movement is clear and defined, but equally messy the bigger you get. Bits of you hang from the walls and Carrion grants you the feeling of the extra terrestrial and gifts you the gore.

It may lack a map, but thinking of it from the alien’s perspective as it slithers in places unknown, the world is fit for exploring and finding things anew.

The more Carrion carries on, the bolder you get - luring victims to death and ambushing them are just bonuses. The simplicity is the key to Carrion's success - games don't need to be complicated, and this one keeps to its MO and delivers it more than effectively.

All in all, Carrion may be brief, but this beastly brevity is a blast.

Keep calm and Carrion, indeed.

A review key for Carrion was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.