And here I thought the extras from Hobbs & Shaw wouldn’t find work again. Boy, thank goodness for Dwayne Johnson, huh? Cuz otherwise Americans wouldn’t be able to place Samoa on the map. :eyeroll: (It’s a handful of islands in the South Pacific, fellas, a few thousand miles east of Australia. Now if only Hollywood could make a star out of a guy from Guam.)
New Zealand, like so many other colonial nations, sends away for labor like mail order. Of course, the Kiwis have their own in-country tensions with minority groups like Maori and Hobbits; adding Samoans to the list is a headache nobody wants. Hence, New Zealand literally employs Samoans for seasonal work and then shoos them away (presumably after they’ve already made their delicious coconut, caramel, and chocolate cookies).
Two brothers, Alama (Vito Vito, a name so nice he’s called it twice) and Popo -a name so nice … wait, didn’t we just do this?- (Ronnie Taulafo), came for the work but Popo split with all the cash before the Po Po arrived arrived. Now Alama, who’s mama is not a llama, has to get out of his pajama, deal with his trauma, and track Popo like Osama. And if you think I had a lot of fun writing that, I did. Alama actually has just a few days before he’s in violation of NZ law, so this ain’t gonna be easy. He contacts Bob (Tofiga Fepulea’i), a local PI the size of a sumo wrestler.
BTW, this film is mostly slapstick. The serious issues it covertly tackles (immigration reform, familial duty, crime) all come secondarily to that fact that Bob is introduced to us by showing that he’s been the family dinner table the whole time! I’m not quite sure how else to describe that; it’s like the scene in Toys where we discover that the red beanbag couch is actually LL Cool J. Want to know how many other people in the world have seen both Toys and Take Home Pay? So would I.
So Bob and Alama hunt down Popo and have comic adventures. This is the kind of film where one character voices they have a mountain to climb and the other counters, “Is there a smaller mountain, preferably one that’s flat?” That’s sitcom humor. It’s not terrible, but nobody should have to pay for it.
While I appreciate that Take Home Pay was a fairly unique watch –I mean, how often does one get to see a NZ comedy about Samoan migrant labor issues?—it was also not a fairly unique watch at the same time. The comedy was tacky and the drama felt tacked on, which isn’t to say the film didn’t have a good heart and probably played well to Samoans, but that’s not enough for me.
New Zealand hires Samoans for trade
And then sends them packing once paid
Dunno what that’s abouts
Don’t you have girl scouts?
Guess the Kiwis want their cookies hand made
Rated PG, 105 Minutes
Director: Stallone Vaiaoga-Ioasa
Writer: Stallone Vaiaoga-Ioasa
Genre: Dramatic slapstick
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Goofy Samoan PIs
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “That wasn’t funny when LL Cool J did it.”
