Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Hunt for the Wilderpeople: when his foster-mum dies and he’s due to go to juvie, a troubled ‘hoodie’ kid and his grouchy new ‘uncle’ end up going AWOL in the New Zealand Bush. The film’s setup is absolute dynamite, but as the story unfolds it loses momentum & steam, and never matches the heady heights of the opening act. The big car-tank-and-helicopter chase at the end feels particularly lavish and a bit silly, for no obvious reason. The best thing about HFTW is the trio of great performances from the main cast: “Aunt” Bella (Wiata), “Uncle” Hec (Sam Neill), and Ricky ‘the kid’, give it their all and draw a lot of laughter. Everyone else on the other hand feels like they were parachuted in to their scenes and told to just improv-up a few bits of comedy gold at gunpoint (most apparent in the slacker/selfie/flake/horse-girl scene); and unfortunately almost all of the laugh-out-loud moments are given away in the trailer. The broody synth soundtrack feels like a big misstep too, as it doesn’t match the upbeat tone of the film. Hunt for the Wilderpeople comes hurtling of out the blocks towards a top mark; unfortunately it just can’t sustain the high-quality and focus into the final hour. That being said, it’s still undeniably a funny and somewhat uplifting ‘Antipodean-Comedy’ (mostly deadpan and accent-based jokes).

Score: 6.5/10