Came a Hot Friday

This is an an enjoyable, pleasant, simple romp through the New Zealand country side and bush in the 1940s; Marshall Napier steals the show as the bad guy - Billy T James would have done, for his eccentric performance as the Tainui Kid, but you need subtitles to understand him. The script is crisp and has some great one-liners but some of the acting is a little on the amateur side and Ian Mune's direction, as always, lacks any real spark. The quality of the story lifts the film above that. Incidentally, for the benefit of a previous poster, Billy T James, as the Tainui kid, is a Maori, not an 'Aboriginal' which is not a socially respectable term anyway. Aborigines are found in Australia, a couple of thousand miles away.

Fun, frenetic Kiwi comedy of two small-time con artists working their way through small-town 1940s New Zealand, on their way falling foul of a nasty piece of work whose schemes involve illegal gambling, moonshine, and an insurance scam which has caused the death of an elderly local. The con-men fall in with a local eccentric - a dream role for New Zealand much-loved comedian Billy T. James - "The Tainuia Kid", the greatest Maori Mexican bandito ever to have patrolled the Rio Grande... The film is full of believable small-town characters and provides cameo roles for many of New Zealand's top comic actors and - while not reaching the production standards of many of the country's more recent Big Movies - the New Zealand film industry can justifiably be proud of this gem. Occasionally dark, often hilarious, and constantly entertaining - make sure it does not slip below your radar.

This is a rollicking comic adventure set in 1949 against a background of horse-racing and crap games in a seedy backwater not unlike Woop Woop, Australia. Wes and his sidekick. Cyril are two down under confidence men who have been than successful in cheating bookies over hill and dale in New Zealand. The bad luck gets worse when they arrive in a dusty run down town in a rattle-trap junker of an automobile that is in critical need of a primer and paint-job after they arrive at the local gin-mill that offers dance and a so-called "casino." Before the dice stop rolling, Wes and Cyril find themselves at odds with local law enforcement and the casino boss. Just as Wes wins with a last toss of the "bones," the town constable shows up and raids the joint, the casino boss took off with the money which the boys try to recover later with a dim-witted overgrown lughead known as the "Tainula Kid," an absolute zero on the scale of one to ten. In and out of the picture we glimpse a character that appears to be a Mexican Vaquero, who comes into full view at the end of the motion picture, really an Aboriginal who believes he is Latin American and missing a few screws. The bad guy dies in an explosion and everyone lives happily ever after except for Wes and Cyril who have to motor to the next village for slim pickings. The "Tainula Kid" ends up with a shinny red rag-top (convertible) and the local girl while he buys his father a new artificial leg. Who would have expected such great comedy in New Zealand like this? Maybe in Australia? This is a must-rent-see video!

Okay, it's not as successful as Hercules or Xena, Warrior Queen... But the NZ film industry can be justifiably proud of this production - it's a great laugh with the performance of the late Billy T James as the Kid stealing the show. Taniwha, dodgy bets, the bookie at the pub, listening to the TAB results on the National Programme - it couldn't have been made anywhere but NZ.

The New Zealand film industry has made some really interesting and entertaining movies over the decades, but this movie is the first real misstep I've experienced from that country. Let me make it clear that it's not awful or merely bad. The production values are first rate; it's amazing how they stretched out a certainly low budget. The performances are good, with the entire cast (especially Billy James) giving very enthusiastic performances. The entire enterprise moves at a very brisk pace, with no slow spots. So what's the problem? Well, I simply didn't laugh that much. To be more exact, I didn't laugh at all, though I did smile a few times. The movie's heart is in the right pace, but its soul isn't really all that humorous. It could just be me, judging from some of the other user comments here, but I wasn't all that tickled. Certainly this is far from the worst comedy movies I have seen in my life, but all the same I was kind of disappointed.