Fresh
The usual dramatic affectations applied to such true-life material are largely absent; instead, Sarkies focuses on various quotidian elements that take on weight as the inevitable draws closer.
David Fear, Time Out New York
Out of the Blue
The true story of a small town massacre.
2006 · 1h 43m · N/A
Crime, Drama
Directed by
Robert Sarkies
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Out of the Blue
Overview
Ordinary people find extraordinary courage in the face of madness. On 13–14 November 1990 that madness came to Aramoana, a small New Zealand seaside town, in the form of a lone gunman with a high-powered semi-automatic rifle. As he stalked his victims the terrified and confused residents were trapped for 24 hours while a handful of under-resourced and under-armed local policemen risked their lives trying to find him and save the survivors. Based on true events.
Director and cast
- Robert Sarkies Director
- Karl Urban as Nick Harvey
- Tandi Wright as Julie-Anne Bryson
- Simon Ferry as Garry Holden
- Matthew Sunderland as David Gray
- Lois Lawn as Helen Dickson
- Paul Glover as Paul Knox
- William Kircher as Stu Guthrie
- Georgia Fabish as Chiquita Holden
- Fayth Rasmussen as Stacey Percy
- Timothy Bartlett as Jimmy Dickson
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
84%
Tomatometer
Fresh
Sarkies avoids the genre's conventional trappings and prefers instead to concentrate on the ways in which the people of Aramoana deal with the unfolding event.
V.A. Musetto, New York Post
Fresh
Robert Sarkies' dramatization of that event is as sensitive to its subject as it is stark in its rendering.
Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
Rotten
Without such thematic resonance, it plays like a more elaborate version of one of the dramatic re-creations seen on any number of true-crime television programs.
Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
Fresh
Like Steven Spielberg's historical epics, the film shows the nastiest incidents from a great distance, or cuts away before a bullet's impact to show an onlooker's shocked reaction. The director confronts horror without wallowing in it.
Matt Zoller Seitz, New York Times
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