New Zealand Spy: Season 1 – TV Review

TL;DR – A delightfully silly exploration of the world of spying through a Kiwi lens.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I viewed this on ABC iView.

New Zealand Spy over a view of mountains.

New Zealand Spy Review Introduction

There is a wide range of ways you can attack the spy genre, and time and time again has shown that farce is a perfectly valid way of achieving that. Today, we are looking at an example of this from my next-door neighbours, and all-round nice guys, New Zealand, who hopefully won’t betray that kindness by casting the Australians as the bad guys.  

So, to set the scene, a man clad in white races down a side of a mountain in skis as bullets fly. Michael Brown (Paul Williams) wants to be a spy; good thing there are only three applicants for five positions, so he just got lucky. After training, Michael is sent on his first mission to Queenstown, with Sue Nightingale (Rose Matafeo) and Michael Anderson (Joe Thomas), to see why the head of Australian Intelligence just touched down. Though maybe the training to be a spy should be longer than two weeks? Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Movie Review – The Breaker Upperers

TL;DR – At times hilarious, at times incredible farcical, and at times a deeply moving look at the trials of friendship.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit scene

The Breaker Upperers. Image Credit: Piki Films/Madman.

Review

For a long time, there has been this growing bubble of particular dry absurdist comedy coming out of New Zealand. You see it in the work of Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, Bret McKenzie, Rhys Darby, Rachel House, and also some of Peter Jackson’s early films. These are films that mix comedy and emotional understanding in equal measures. Whenever one of these movies like Hunt for the Wilderpeople (see review) or Hibiscus & Ruthless (see review) make it across the ditch I always really look forward to seeing it. Well, today we get the chance to look at a new entry into this wonderful genre The Breaker Upperers, from the comedic team of Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek.

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