This appears to be one of those romps that Aotearoans seem to enjoy so much: about people on the run from blundering, heavy-handed authority. Cf. Goodbye Pork Pie (Geoff Murphy, 1980). Much of the fun here stems from the mismatching of the odd couple, the bookish (alleged) juvenile delinquent Ricky, and the gruff-but-sensitive bushman Hec. But wait! Haven’t we seen one of these actors on the run before, forty years ago, in Sleeping Dogs, in which Sam Neill was on the run from the New Zealand state – assisted by the USA? On the earlier occasion the tone was serious; here it’s comic. But I wonder if the two stories do not have something profoundly in common. Something perhaps signalled by Sam Neill’s own 1996 survey of 100 years of NZ cinema, which he called A Cinema of Unease.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (Taika Waititi, 2016)
reviews | Garry Gillard | New: 27 February, 2017 | Now: 27 February, 2017