As Freddy, the guileless and hapless narrator of Lowdown Dirty Criminals observes: “When you cross over a line, you may never come back”. Leaving his dead-end pizza delivery job behind, Freddy stumbles and bumbles his way through a life of comical crime while that crossed line speedily recedes behind him. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, Freddy entertainingly demonstrates that his skills lie in creating laughter and chaos rather than committing inept robberies and undertaking Tarantino-esque mobster hits. Featuring James Rolleston, the now grown-up star of Taika Waititi’s Boy (2010), Lowdown Dirty Criminals is an unabashedly irreverent and unpretentious Kiwi comedy of criminal errors. Like the early work of Peter Jackson, director Paul Murphy occasionally pushes the boundaries of good taste though he consistently maintains the down-to- earth quality for which New Zealand is famous. (Russell EDWARDS)