Wow! Such a good movie.

Excellent but underrated film

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Am I Missing Something?

Films like this don't seem to garner much favor by IMDb viewers, judging by this one's low score as I write this. I think that has to do with pacing and the fact that this isn't an action film per se, but more of a psychological cat and mouse game between the two protagonists. This was my first look at Ray Winstone and Temuera Morrison, and I thought both acquitted themselves well throughout their challenging ordeal. Arjan van Diemen (Winstone) eventually comes to respect and trust the man who's accused of murder (Morrison), and decides to thwart the posse dead set to capture him.The one thing you have to overlook though, is how any human being can withstand the brutal punishment both men suffered during their physical bouts against each other, and the rugged terrain they encountered while tumbling down hillsides and getting thrown around in bruising rapids. Stuff like that is never properly addressed, and you have to take it on faith that bodies were built to handle that kind of abuse.I will say that seeing how Kereama survived was more of a twist than the one with van Diemen mutilating himself to save the Maori. After the fact one might question how he hid the disfigurement from the rest of the posse, but it did make for a story resolution that cemented Arjan's admiration for a man who's honor and life was at stake, and who could have killed him at various times during the chase, but didn't. Well done and nicely filmed.

The opening titles give the clue. All the finance has come from one state funded quango or another. This means one thing only: Every money making production company on earth has passed on the script. With good reason. It's lame. The photography and locations are lovely but the locations are nonsense. The act on which the plot depends happens in a port of arrival to NZ. The rest of the action, which is in a day's walk of said port is in the mountains and fjords of the SW S Island. That is impossible. Then we come to casting. My first impression was, Why cast Ray Winstone as a Boer if he can't get within a mile of the accent? After about 20 minutes the answer is clear. Nobody else would do it. It's one of the weakest scripts I've ever suffered. Perhaps Ray doesn't gamble as responsibly as he would have us believe.

The cat and mouse/hunter-prey theme is pretty well rought but this film adds a convincing human element to a film that might otherwise get caught up in the landscape or action.The early scenes and some of the supporting cast are a little lackluster, and reminded this viewer how difficult it is for New Zealand films to escape a sort of provincialism (for want of a better word) that can often be detected in kiwi films trying to be 'international'. Winstone, Morrison and Andy Anderson as the colonial tracker all stand out in this.The film has plenty of action and fistycuffs and ballyhoo but the focus is firmly on the tension of the hunt and the connection that forms between Winston and Morrison's characters.Without adding a spoiler I will say the ending, while not disappointing, might have been 'more'. You make your own mind up!

A former soldier of the Boer war arrives in New Zealand (1903) for reasons unknown (vacation?). Shortly thereafter a British soldier is killed in a conflict with a Maori (native New Zealander) when the soldier and his drinking buddies discover the Maori with a white woman in a barn. The Maori at the time was on a break from a whaling ship on which he served as a harpooner. On learning of the killing, the commander of the soldiers quickly organizes a hunting party with a tracker. He also enlists the aid of the Boer guy that may or may not be on vacation to assist his tracker. There is a nice reward of 100 sovereigns for the Maori alive and 25 dead. This guy needs the money, folks. No other reason to help the British soldiers. And so off they go into the wild.This movie is a little over an hour and a half but feels like two. This is because of the time spent with dull tracking of quarry and dull conversations with quarry. Who doesn't like a good chase or hunt? But in order to have that you have to find what the hunter and hunted are doing interesting. So (1) you need to get a real sense of their cleverness or ingenuity in trying to capture and avoid capture. And (2) there has to be a heightening of suspense based on a closing of the gap between them and a real sense of their desperation or motivation to succeed as a result; --whatever the cost.But in this movie I never felt that (1) anyone was being particularly cunning. They did the standard things we've all seen before; broke a branch to make it look like this is where someone went and backtracked over tracks to misdirect. This might have been clever at one time but now it's standard practice even for morons. And (2) I felt the tracking or pursuit in this movie was too leisurely; with the pursuer acting like he was just out for a stroll and not hunting a dangerous killer and the pursued acting like he was playing a little game of hide and seek with an old friend and not in peril for his life. The relationship between these two men bordered on comedy which made me think that maybe the producers should have just said "F!!ck it!" and gone that route. Perhaps they intended --at least in part-- that the movie be a "character study" of the two men; learning what motivated them and who they were thru civil conversation. In other words: Even though I've got a rope around your neck that doesn't mean we can't share. Love, Boloxxxi.