Stickmen

Synopsis: In a high stakes tournament, a group of pool players must face up to a weird and wonderful collection of players. Bikers, priests, waitresses and bankers are all standing in their way of winning the big cash prize. Behind it all is the sinister omnipresence of Daddy, a hook-handed Greek crime lord who pulls all the strings.

AroView: A crowd-pleasing and assured sports-fetish movie, this doesn’t shy from being dubbed ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Pool Cues’, with its requisite camera smarts, laddish pranks, and chisel-cheekboned cast, but forgive its trespass and this cool Kiwi spin has plenty more to offer than all the other knock-offs.

Robbie Magasiva, Scott Wills and Paolo Rotundo play the lovable rogue trio who get indebted to the local mob psycho and can only save their skins by causing an upset at a major local pool hall tournament. The neatly structured, crisply ironic script doesn’t run out of manouevres as the boys resourcefully carve their way through a slate of larger-than-life opponents.