James Rolleston leads a hang-loose caper of a pizza deliveryman who finds himself embroiled in a crime gang full of cartoon menace
Director Paul Murphy’s Wellington-set crime comedy, Lowdown Dirty Criminals, seems to have fallen out of a time warp, feeling dated almost immediately. In the first scene the filmmaker deploys Guy Ritchie-esque freeze frames and kicks off a nonlinear Tarantino-like structure – which were particularly popular techniques for stories about gangsters and nogoodniks during the 90s and in the early years of the new century.
It opens with a young pea-brained protagonist, Freddy (James Rolleston), interrupting a Reservoir Dogs style face-off between gun-wielding criminals to commence his voiceover: “Have you ever had one of those days where everything just turns to shit?” Although this is only the opening scene, by this point Murphy has already established a laidback and perhaps even quintessentially New Zealand vibe, speaking directly and personably to the audience.
Continue reading…James Rolleston leads a hang-loose caper of a pizza deliveryman who finds himself embroiled in a crime gang full of cartoon menace Director Paul Murphy’s Wellington-set crime comedy, Lowdown Dirty Criminals, seems to have fallen out of a time warp, feeling dated almost immediately. In the first scene the filmmaker deploys Guy Ritchie-esque freeze frames and kicks off a nonlinear Tarantino-like structure – which were particularly popular techniques for stories about gangsters and nogoodniks during the 90s and in the early years of the new century.It opens with a young pea-brained protagonist, Freddy (James Rolleston), interrupting a Reservoir Dogs style face-off between gun-wielding criminals to commence his voiceover: “Have you ever had one of those days where everything just turns to shit?” Although this is only the opening scene, by this point Murphy has already established a laidback and perhaps even quintessentially New Zealand vibe, speaking directly and personably to the audience. Continue reading…