Sometimes the world is yours, if only for a brief time, a la Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in SCARFACE. However, if you lack the right heart and temperament for a good crime in a bad world, you might want to be grateful for pizza delivery, which is where two hapless friends, in their bid for fortune and infamy, find themselves in the new New Zealand comic noir LOWDOWN DIRTY CRIMINALS.

So, here’s the LOWDOWN on LOWDOWN. Freddy (James Rolleston) is tired of his topped-up-for-toppings existence and isn’t doing so well fulfilling the promise of the twenty-minute delivery. His mate, Marvin (Samuel Austin), is in with local gangster Mickey Spiggs (Scott Wills) and the two of them decide to offer their services. Unfortunately, they haven’t got off on the right foot after they attempt to rob an ATM at a local convenience store by ramming the back of Spiggs’ car into it to break it.

Things have got worse as they have ruined Spiggs’ birthday cake, but he offers Freddy and Marvin an early chance for redemption – kill the lover of his wife, Donny Kong (Min Kim) by ‘High Noon’ on the same day of assignment – and all will be resolved . However, when they go to the motel where Donny is hiding, their own misinterpretation of orders and their own natural confusion finds themselves mixed up in the affairs of the brutal female gangster ‘The Upholsterer’ (Rebecca Gibney) – and hell is worse off all round on Earth…..

Cheerfully funny and bloody comic noir, directed by Paul Murphy from a screenplay by David Brechin-Smith in the realm of Coen Brothers when low level crime is the norm and plots mix with subplots here and there, coupled with the traditional Scorsese and Tarantino motifs of voice-over and violence you can expect in the genre.

Although admittedly the film is predictable within the unpredictability, it takes you where you want to go – and delivers on the promise as much as one of the pizzas Freddy has been thriving to. Be prepared for one or two discomforting moments in a film that is a terrific showcase for New Zealand’s film-making community

Please follow and like us:
REVIEW OVERVIEW
LOWDOWN DIRTY CRIMINALS
SHARE
Film and TV Journalist Follow: @Higgins99John Follow: @filmandtvnow