Funny Games

Aroview: This contentious ‘self-remake’ finds perennial agitator Michael Haneke revisiting his subversive home invasion classic, emigrating the terror, shot-for-shot, Stateside to a seemingly idyllic holiday locale.

Admirers of the German-language original may find perverse satisfaction in watching Haneke’s ultimate party trick in the company of naïve and unsuspecting friends, although should not underestimate the encore antics as a mere recyclable for US audiences. Transporting the setting to America, and the dialogue to English, proves rewarding from a comic point-of-view, with the film’s tennis-apparelled assailants – played by baby-faced duet Brady Corbet and Michael Pitt – revealed as a fiendish black comedy routine. Alternatively, an anguished Naomi Watts and Tim Roth maintain a gravity throughout, their ordeal sure to gut-wrench the most jaded and unsympathetic horror movie fan.

NZ International Film Festival 2008

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