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Jack Be
Nimble
Directed by Garth Maxwell
Released: 1993
Starring Alexis Arquette, Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, Bruno Lawrence, Tony Barry,
Elizabeth Hawthorne
Running Time: 92 minutes
DVD Studio: Image Entertainment
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Abandoned by their parents as
children, Dora and Jack are put up for adoption. Dora (played by Sarah
Smuts-Kennedy) goes to an upper class couple full of love for their new
daughter and grows up stably yet unhappy. Jack (Alexis Arquette) is taken
in by a couple of abusive country bumpkins with four evil daughters and he
is constantly tormented. Both of their lives become unbearable when Dora
is pushed off a cliff but a bully at school and Jack is whipped with
barbed wire (!) by his adopted father.
When Dora wakes from a short coma, she discovers that she has developed
psychic powers and her connection to Jack is even stronger than ever. With
the help of her lover and fellow clairvoyant Teddy (played by Bruno
Lawrence), Dora finds Jack but all is not well. In his spare time, Jack
builds a machine that hypnotizes people which he uses to get his evil
parents to kill themselves. The brother and sister track down their real
parents to find out why they were sent to the orphanage. But this ain’t no
episode of “The Locator” especially since Jack is now violently psychotic
and his four evil sisters are hot on he and Dora’s trail.
Is it okay to be afraid of New Zealanders? The answer is yes. Once again I
underestimated a flick from that distant and wonderful place and once
again I was totally blown away. Director Garth Maxwell creates a dark and
feverish fairy tale world where everyone is completely insane.
Jack Be Nimble
is both dreamy and nightmarish with exquisitely fluid camerawork and
moments of surreal and bloody glory. My only complaint about the film is
that the melodrama overtakes the story in some scenes and it gets a little
embarrassing to watch as the actors scream and cry at each other.
The always reliable Bruno Lawrence (The
Quiet Earth,
Death Warmed Up) is in the cast and is very good as Teddy, Dora’s lover
(and overly smug psychic) who probably shouldn’t have lent
her his car. Alexis Arquette (Bride
of Chucky) is awesome
as Jack, the brooding, sexy (ooh, someone’s got a man-crush (on someone who used to be a man)) and frightening
son of a bitch who has been pushed too close to the edge and can never
come back. I really like Sarah Smuts-Kennedy. This odd actress puts
everything into her performance of a woman haunted by her past and (as an
added bonus) the
voices of the dead and I couldn’t help but be fascinated.
While not a perfect film,
Jack Be Nimble
is a truly original and hypnotic masterpiece of New Zealand horror cinema
and is easily one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen. Every character
is suffering in his or her own way and either pain or death (or both) is
always just around the corner. This film also contains that indescribably
Kiwi thing. It is an aura of quirky madness and total unpredictability
even when you’re pretty sure you think you know what’s coming next.
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Quotes
“Do you hear me? You know me.
I’m in your head. Drifting in the same sea, you and I, drowning together.”
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DVD Stuff
Hello! Can anyone out there
hear me? We need a reissue here. Image Entertainment released
Jack Be Nimble
on DVD way back in 1999 and boy oh boy does this one need some attention.
The full frame presentation is okay and the picture is clear enough but
the menu is one of those minimalistic affairs with just the ‘chapter
selection’ and ‘start feature’ options. There are absolutely no extras on
this now out of print disc.
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