Came a Hot Friday

I haven't seen too many movies from New Zealand. Those that I've seen have been so good that I rarely miss a chance to see another one. Once Were Warriors, Whale Rider, Piano, Smash Palace, Rain, Starlight Hotel... very different movies, but each of them at least good, never a waste of time, offering things to think and discuss about, having messages...

But all what's good comes to end. Came a Good Friday is a movie that doesn't fit in almost anything I've said about NZ movies.

I like comedies. Maybe I've expected too much, but I've smiled three times and never opened my mouth for laughter.

The basic idea is manifestly similar to The Sting, but as Friday was made after a novel written before Hill made his movie the authors can't be blamed for stealing. Instead of that, we can be surprised that they decided to make it after The Sting became so famous and people can compare the movies.

Hill's plot takes place in a big American town, Mune's in New Zealand village, so the characters are very different. Interesting thing is that Hill's more than 2 hours long movie doesn't look so congested by characters, though settled in Chicago, while Mune seems to have need to show every single person who might live in this village. At least half of them were the burden that disabled better understanding and developing of the other half.

This insistence in offering a wide spectrum of different people that are rather typical (or cliché?) for such a milieu makes us remember Czechoslovakian cinematography from 60's and 70's, from Menzel to Chytilova, or even 90's and a bit more urban like Sverak, Steindler or Hrebejk. Their humor also wasn't loud, intense, it was in fact often bitter or sad. But the plot of their movies was deeply local and realistic, and didn't try to force us to laugh by a story that first like deja vu repeats funny idea from Sting, and later introduces a Maor character that would fit in Mel Brooks or Abrahams-Zucker movies and no way in early Forman. Swedish and Italian 70's and 80's movies also often depicted many characters in provincial cities, but usually concentrated on few of them (with mostly local people in major roles); these movies were frequently dramas with strong social ground and not pale comedies where both social and personal relations are used only as clichés.

Though I, except in extremely rare occasions, never quit watching a movie once I decide to see it, I was really tempted this time.

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 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.

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.

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.