My first problem was the enormous difficulty I had in believing for even a nanosecond that Conan Hayes playing Whetu was a Maori. The second was imagining that twenty six year old Jordan Oosterhof as Jim Richardson was a seventeen year old boxer. Yes, he was fit and did a good impression of punching to a lay person like me but his pretty face, with its unbroken nose, was completely unconvincing.
The other unconvincing thing was the burgeoning friendship between Whetu and Jim. That Jim put his arm round Whetu in front of small-minded townsfolk just didn't compute. Even more so when this gave Ron leverage over him.
Tim Roth as Dad gave a good performance but what else what would we have expected?
The cast tried their best with a mediocre script that just didn't gel with the supposed characters of the players. Lyrical outbursts were just not appropriate to the personalities of the situation of a small hick town.
As the film rushed to its conclusion, few loose ends were resolved. Arson, betting, breach of contract, imminent death, relationships. Everything was left in the air. While we were wondering about this, the film ended with the performance of a song of such cloying sentimentality that I nearly gagged.
So, there were a few good moments but most of the film was incoherent. I cannot really recommend it.
