Rating: NR
Genre:
Drama
Theatrical Release: 10/19/2007(USA
Release Date: 06/10/2008
SubTitles: English/Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD5.1
Run Time: 103 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: IFC
Out of the Blue, New Zealand writer-director
Robert Sarkies' long-awaited follow-up to his 1999 feature debut
Scarfies, recreates the events that led up to and surrounded
David Gray's November 13, 1990, mass murder of 13 locals in the town of Aramoana, New Zealand.
Sarkies, however, approaches the material not as exploitation or as an
action picture, but -- like
Terrence Malick in his 1973
true crime picture
Badlands -- as an understated and detached
drama.
Sarkies uses a contemplative and reflective approach and a small-town pace and resists gratuitousness, intersecting several tales of casualties and survivors and downplaying the brutal violence. One story involves the contentious relationship between fiftysomething
Jim (
Timothy Bartlett) and his mother (
Lois Lawn); another has a mom,
Julia Anne (
Tandie Wright) informing her daughter
Rewa (
Jacinta Wawatai) and her beau's children that they plan to share a house; and in a third, eccentric gun nut
David Gray (
Matthew Sunderland) cracks and guns down
Julia's boyfriend,
Gerry (
Simon Ferry), in cold blood. These only represent the first three threads in a complex narrative tapestry; the story ultimately gives way to tense hours as the locals, realizing that a predator is on the loose and will kill anyone he can find, barricade their homes and cower in fear. Cinematographer
Greig Fraser gives the picture a chilly, wintry aesthetic, rich with whites and blues. The film co-stars
Karl Urban;
Graeme Tetley co-authored the script with
Sarkies.
~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
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