Sione’s 2: Unfinished Business
Reviewed by Helen Martin

Feature NZ 2011 prod co South Pacific Pictures exec prod John Barnett prod Paul Davis dir Simon Bennett script James Griffin, Oscar Kightley DP Marty Smith ed Bryan Shaw production design Tracey Collins costume design Kirsty Cameron sound Myk Farmer, Chris Burt , Stefan Brough composer Don McGlashan music selection Don McGlashan, Dawn Raid cast Oscar Kightley, Robbie Magasiva, Shimpal Lelisi, Iaheto Ah Hi, Teuila Blakely, Madeleine Sami, David Fane, Kirk Torrance, Nathaniel Lees, David Van Horn, Mario Gaoa 92 minutes

The MacGuffin (ie plot driver) in the popular and successful Sione’s Wedding (2006) turned on the highly unlikely notion that a bunch of troublesome Samoan friends would be permitted to attend an important wedding only if they were each accompanied by a woman with whom they were in a serious relationship. Audiences bought it – that these irresponsible, wayward but lovable boys in men’s clothing could, when they worked at it, attract any number of beautiful, sensible, grown-up women in double-quick time and secure their affections. Elements of farce provided much of the humour, but skilful balancing of the film’s tone kept it grounded.

Sione’s 2: Unfinished Business uses the same principles – the boys still haven’t grown up, the lovely, sensible women are still hanging in there, and there’s a fragile MacGuffin to spur the action, this time in the form of a wild goose chase around Auckland looking for a friend whose presence is required at a funeral the following morning.

Working towards the common cause is much more fraught this time around because the Duckrockers, as Michael, Albert, Sefa and Stanley like to call themselves, now five years older, are all preoccupied with their own life-stage issues. So the chase, staged with all the gusto of a full-on farce – improbable situations, cover-ups, quick fire word-play, physical humour, numerous plot twists and revelations, a breathless pace and an elaborately choreographed climax – has to also bear the weight of the Duckrockers making personal rite of passage transitions, in other words, growing up. “Maybe we’re too old to be boys,” one eventually says, “have you thought about that?”

Farce requires broadly stylized performances and a frenetic pace. Dramatic character journeys, even in comedy, need a believable back story, a realistic performance style and a carefully managed pace. When you mix the two styles because your purpose is split two ways, you can become unstuck. In Sione’s 2 there’s so much going on that the centre doesn’t hold. Added to that, there’s way too much dialogue. The one liners that characterise the writers’ style sometimes crackle (“When you’ve given up booze, sex and girls, fear is as good as it gets,” bemoans Stanley), but there are too many misses for comfort. Too many of the one liners sound ‘written’, rather than organic to the characters saying them. And too much of the plot is revealed creakily in mouthfuls of explanatory dialogue, telling not showing. In a ‘have your cake and eat it too’ moment, after milking the outrageous boyish stuff for laughs all the way through, will anyone believe the final Duckrocker pronouncement, “All men are dicks. Women help us make it” to be sincere? Nah.  

Still, there’s a lot to like about this film. It has a buoyant spirit. There are some nice set piece scenes – the Duckrockers sorting Albert out on a basketball court, the women sharing thoughts while preparing funeral food, the wanna-be homies facing down the Duckrockers in K Road. Despite the difficulties demanded by the script, the lead actors’ characters are intermittently engaging. As taxi driver Eugene, Mario Gaoa is charged with executing the chase. Successfully mining silent comedy conventions, he raises a lot of laughs without uttering a word. Responses to the fundamentalist cult leader send-up in the person of Cardinal Hoani, played by Kirk Torrance, have been mixed – Hannah Tamaki objected to it because, she said, her husband would never go to a strip joint – but I loved it.  More of that!    

The production values are also superb. The cinematography is crisp and nicely lit, serving the richly-coloured and meticulous production design well. Also striking is the inventive use of the Auckland locations; K Road, Grey Lynn, Ponsonby, our beautiful harbour. Myers Park has never looked so good – watching the night scene there you wonder why the park’s potential as a brilliant location has been so overlooked. And of course the soundtrack from Don McGlashan and Dawn Raid artists provides, as is to be expected from these consummate professionals, an upbeat, perfectly judged accompaniment to the action.