Time: 100 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – Violence & offensive language
Cast:
Willa O’Neill as Emma
Neill Rea as Scott
Ashleigh Seagar as Nicola
Taika Waititi as Alex
Charlie Bleakley as Graham
Jon Brazier as Kevin
Mark Neilson as Gordy
Director: Robert Sarkies

I went into a screening of Scarfies at the Wellington Film Society barely knowing anything about it, just that it was a low budget independent New Zealand film about uni students that’s meant to be a crime movie. I actually quite liked it.

Scarfies is a humorous and entertaining crime comedy that begins with a group of university students discovering weed in their new abandoned flat and making money from it. Upon further developments though, it turns into a full on crime thriller, becoming darker in tone and having morality play, but also still retaining a fair amount of dark comedy throughout.

The limited cast with Willa O’Neill, Neill Rea, Ashleigh Seagar, Taika Waititi, and Charlie Bleakley are very solid, and they play off each other very well.

Scarfies definitely looks low budget and appears very dated and rough around the edges, but I think it somewhat benefits from that, and much of the grunginess (especially with the primary setting of the flat) along with the dark colour scheme is very fitting for this film.

Scarfies is an entertaining, darkly humorous, grungy and energetic thriller with a good cast.