Orphans and Kingdoms

2014, 1080hd

Johnny's comments:

Orphans & Kingdoms is a drama wherein Jeremy (Colin Moy) reluctantly enters his luxury home late at night and is confronted by a young woman who attempts to placate him before he is hit over the head and knocked out by a younger boy with a hockey stick. Earlier in the day, three siblings get off ferry at Waiheke Island and cause a bit of mayhem. Led by the eldest, Tibs aka T (Hanelle Harris), she has two brothers, Jesse (Jesse James Rehu Pickery) and the youngest Key (Calae Hignett-Morgan), and they snatch a bag from a woman, do some light shoplifting, and create some graffiti before deciding to find one of the luxury houses to stay in. Key breaks into one house and disarms the alarm and they enjoy the house briefly before the police come around to check the house. They hide and manage to avoid being seen. They party on through the night before Jeremy comes back home. After Jeremy is hit on the head, there is a mad scramble to pilfer the house before leaving but in the rush, Jesse climbs up on a chair to look for something in a high cabinet and falls off the chair, breaking his ankle. A concussed Jeremy mistakes him for his son Scott. They tie up Jeremy and Key decides to kill him with a knife with T and Jeremy begging for him to do kill him talking him out of it. We see that Jeremy found his son hanging in the garage. It becomes clear that Jeremy is needed to help them with Jesse so T cuts him loose but Jeremy begs them to leave. Jeremy sees Key with his son's hat on and he loses it, attacking Key and forcing Key and T to clean up the house and then make a splint for his leg. After settling Jesse down, T helps Jeremy with his sores and then attempts to seduce him but he's not interested. They go to sleep and wait for the morning to go to the hospital. The next day, they argue before the policeman from yesterday knocks on the door checking if Jeremy's alright and asks if he's seen the siblings but he says he hasn't. They go to the local hospital but there are pictures of the siblings on the noticeboard, so they have to take the ferry to Auckland.

OK drama and at barely 70 minutes, it packs a bit in with a fairly basic plot but there's isn't very much at stake and it ends fairly anti-climatically with no suggestion anything changes for the better or that the kids learned anything from the experience other than managing to barely escape from their frolic. The locations look great, It's rare to set a movie on Auckland's Waiheke Island (see also Death Warmed Up).

It's a low stakes movie but a fairly watchable one.

Hanelle Harris film clip (sample below)