Catching the Black Widow (2017)

The spin of this dramatisation of a real life crime story, a case I'd never heard of but one which apparently rivetted New Zealand as it played out in court in 2013, is that a selfless Erin Brockovich-style crusader, Lee-Anne Cartier, overcame family problems, financial troubles and disinterested police to expose her brother's wife as his killer, but given the perfectly plain fact that the wife, Helen Milner, is a murderous weirdo who compulsively - and stupidly - lies (and not just about the details of her husband's death) and given she was at the time being investigated about other crimes including a $30,000 theft, was considered a loon by work colleagues and was seeking to claim $250,000 from her victim's life insurance policy, it is hard to believe Cartier's efforts beyond her initial questioning of a suicide ruling were necessary, which might just be a problem in the telling of the story, but either way, rightly or wrongly, this $2 million production is a dry affair and feels like an attempt to present slow-moving and routine NZ police matters as something more 'Hollywood'. 

★☆☆☆☆

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Born To Dance (2015)

The ruthless dog-eat-dog world of New Zealand's hip-hop dance scene is given a not terribly interesting but good-natured and at times surprisingly touching treatment in this drama about a boy, Tu, who, believing himself destined for bigger New Zealand's Next Top Hip Hop Idol things (bigger than the army recruitment dreams his father holds for him), refuses to give up when someone steals his innovative 'hoodie move'.

★★★☆☆

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Hunt For The Wilderpeople (2016)

This Taiki Waititi comedy about a man and his foster son who become subjects of a massive manhunt in the New Zealand bush is an occasionally amusing, occasionally touching kids movie with childish overacting and a cloyingly cute story likely to bore adults.

★★☆☆☆

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Boy (2010)

This hilarious comedy but not so well-executed drama has you crying with laughter one minute and crying with dismay the next over the disparity between a young boy's hero-image of his father and the man himself, a down-on-his-luck simpleton and terrible influence who steps back into the boy's life to recover a buried treasure.

★★★☆☆

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