From the opening frame of Muru you’re made aware this is the real thing. It looks and sounds fantastic, the A-List cast is dazzling, and the passion driving it seeps into every part of the film.
Cliff Curtis as Taff Williams in Muru. Photo: Screenshot
Muru opens on an idyllic day in the bush. Local policeman Taff Williams – Cliff Curtis - is on bus duty today. His colleague Blake usually does it, but she’s off on traffic duty.
Taff’s busing the local kids to school, on the way dropping off a party of aunties to get mammograms from Dr Foon.
Everyone speaks te reo - the local cops, the aunties and the kids, the Chinese doctor, it feels perfectly natural. So, when English is spoken – by a suspicious pair lurking in a big van – it feels intrusive.
Officer Blake asks for some details about the pair, they suddenly drive off, knocking her down.
Taff rings the station to find out what’s going on, only to be elbowed out of the way by the professionals – the elite STG unit, led by arrogant Gallagher – Jay Ryan - and hot-headed Kimiora – Manu Bennett. They claim to have evidence of domestic terrorism.
This is just five years after 9/11, of course, when everyone was looking for terrorists – particularly elite police units.
They mutter darkly about guns and “boot camps” in the valley, led by well-known activist, ex-Communist, bee-keeper and artist Tame Iti - sounded like Al Qaeda to someone in Wellington.
Phones were tapped, picking up a lot of drunken ravings - what Taff dismisses as “bush talk” – but it was enough to trigger a major police raid.
And despite the growing doubt about Tame Iti as a remotely plausible Osama Bin Laden, it seems the operation was too far advanced to stop.
Armed to the teeth, the cops arrive – and the assault on the peaceful settlement is as shocking as it no doubt was when it happened.
The mark of the class of Muru is how they intercut between the raid, and the uncomprehending kids on the bus looking on. “Look, Ninjas,” says one.
The police can’t find Tame Iti but they can find a teenager called Rusty, the local screw-up galloping around the Ninja cops holding a gun he picked up somewhere.
Taff can see where this is heading and races after him trying to call the STG guys off.
Once it becomes clear that someone had blundered here, there are only two ways to go.
One is to pull back, with apologies all round. The other is to pick sides and blast your way through it. Guess which way the invading cops take in Muru?
By the end there are good cops and bad cops, hot-headed local kids and parents trying to save them, with local cops Taff and Blake caught in the middle.
And towering above it all is the inimitable presence of Tame Iti himself – who else was going to play him? When Tame comes over the hill to confront the invaders it’s one of the great moments of New Zealand cinema.
Writer-director Tearepa Kahi, the cast led by Curtis and Simone Kessell, a crack crew battle-hardened by years of TV and feature films…they’ve all gone towards making Muru as good as it is.
But more than that, they’ve turned over 100 years of events into just under two hours of cracking story, and one that will stand up to repeated viewings. Tūhoe won’t forget. And nor will you.
Listen to Cliff Curtis talking about Muru on Nine to Noon here.
