You Move You Die (2007)

The Worst Film Ever

Simply Perfect

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I bought this film for nothing in a Chinese market and sat down to watch it. The only thing on the cover in English was the title. For the first ten minutes I was trying to decide whether this film had been made by some kind of movie school in the UK or not, but to my growing joy I was proved wrong. Set in some town in New Zealand(Aukland maybe), the film is basically about a day in the life of a bunch of 'hard men/wise boys' out to get back something stolen from their leader in a mugging. The story has obvious flaws - but tell me one that doesn't.The dialogue is absolutely spot on. This is how we really speak. At least the gentlemen I know speak like this "you're a knob jockey" being a fine example that comes to mind.Upon close of the film I found I had come across a great bunch of characters and all in their own way likable and recognisable from my own experiences. The lead duo I thought were superb, and you can tell while watching the film they were enjoying themselves. It's all done with a great sense of fun and lust for life. If you are interested in watching a well made film, full action, great dialogue, magic characters, funny as hell - and without the biblical references, social pap, bare knuckle fighting and blood (although Mr Richie does this well) political correctness, etc. etc. - then here it be. Marvelous work! Lets have another one.

While it's not a great film, it is close to unique, consistently fun to watch, and keeps you interested until the end. A crime-action film like Crank in some ways.It's the light-hearted version of a film like American Gangster, and gangster films in general which almost always take a very serious thriller angle to the story. The difference here is you really don't realize you're watching a gangster film until near the end. You get some strong hints of it, but it's never clear.This is the type of film that should get a best screenplay award. The beginning and end tie together perfectly, yet you never see the connection until the end. I probably should give it a higher rating for that alone, but it's not without a few annoyances. Very much worth seeing nonetheless.

Alas, Francis Ford Coppola was wrong. The digital camera revolution has not resulted in an explosion of talent gracing our screens. All it has delivered is the never ending glut of amateur material, posturing as cinema, that clog the shelves of video stores worldwide. YOU MOVE YOU DIE is a continuation of this never ending cycle of sub-mediocre, ego- driven and wholly wretched home-movies.Suffering through YOU MOVE YOU DIE is like watching a gang of young schoolboys, inspired by a movie they just saw, playing Goodies and Baddies as they chase each other around the drab back streets of their boring small town. They play-fight and play-act, and do all things their parents would frown upon (like swearing and smoking). The jolly romp is all made up on the spur of the moment and after an hour or so, they're so darn tuckered out from all the tussling and screaming and pointlessness of it all, so they simply...stop. Now imagine a group of age-retarded adult men in their thirties, doing the above. Yet sadder still, is their friend with a video-camera who's followed them around as they playact like little kids- bored during the summer holidays. Then afterwards, they all wearily (but satisfied and with much backslapping) go back home to endlessly watch themselves replayed on telly, over fizzy drinks and chips as they collectively fantasize about hanging out with Tarantino.That pretty much sums up wrist-slitting banality that is YOU MOVE YOU DIE.

Evil? Err, okay, someone needs to get out more. The movie was okay in the sense that unlike all other New Zealand movies, it didn't try to dig into quirkiness that defines just about every other NZ movie out there - think genetically modified killer sheep. Watching it, I did get a little bored after about 30 minutes, but then I did a gear change and accepted it for what it was - a low budget, romp through Auckland, with some cheesy action and acting. The actors seemed enthusiastic, albeit quite wooden at times. There were a few laugh out loud moments - ie Mike making the chick disappear and the whole conversation in the dry cleaners - and there were some cringe moments as well - ie the scene with the kids mother. Watching an interview on TV, it seems that it was all done on a budget of $50,000. Yeah, it wasn't the best, and for a first effort action movie a little light on the action. Worth a watch if you are a Ketzal Sterling fan, from the days when he was doing High Octane - another cheesy product but TOTALLY appropriate for that market.