The Barbie

It's kind of hard to keep up with the Joneses when you can't even keep up with your partner, and when our corner cutting lead doesn't get invited to the upcoming dinner next door but his lady does, he hatches a plan to get a BBQ and become the king of the community.

Or at least that's what his mindset is as we got a bumbling populist but classic Kiwi comedy where the jokes flew thick and fast.

First off, excellent performances by all of your actors and actresses. They really committed to their roles and played the roles with aplomb.

Second big positive point for me was how you contrasted the bright sunny suburban shoot location with some incredibly dark macabre humour. It honestly felt a bit WTF when our would be grill master fantasized about murdering their succesful neighbour and dumping them in the Hauraki basin. Just so off the cuff I can imagine this having got a lot of laughs in a cinema heat screening with a crowd. Obviously many others liked the humour too, congratulations on your audience favourite award in a seriously strong heat.

But I think the script let the film down a little bit because whilst there was a whole lot of storytelling in here with an arc, which is always a big plus in 48 (trust me), and subtle hints at giving your characters motivation, the tone just really felt too relaxed for your genre in my book.
Good payoff but I wish there had been some dramatic urgency. It's fine to be comedic with a normally serious genre, in fact subversion is probably the best way to go in this comp to stand out from the pack, but like maybe showing the neighbour actually was a "farcking carnt" would have gone a long way to getting the characters on your side for taking the weber. Just my 2c.

Technically pretty good with decent camerawork, sound, editing and use of natural lighting. Not much to complain about there. Main area of focus would have been some more dynamic camerawork to heighten the action given you got Heist as your genre.

Story: 2.5/5
Technical: 3/5
Elements: 2.5/5
Overall: 2.5/5