by Annette Basile
Worth: $5.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Nathan Hill, Sandy Greenwood, Candice Day
Intro:
… lacks electricity, fun, real romance and action.
Melbourne private detective Jasper Clay (Nathan Hill) is about to take early retirement when he gets drawn back in by a case of a kidnapped child. The boy’s mum – who will also be kidnapped and become Jasper’s love interest – is working girl Courtney (Sandy Greenwood), and she’s involved with the shady Danvers (Liam Beattie), who lives in the underbelly of the Victorian town of Elmore.
Nathan Hill produced, wrote, directed and stars in this film that’s billed as an action/comedy/romance. But it suffers from anaemia in all three genres. It’s a 2011 release, but only recently, adapted into a book – Jasper: The Gloves Are Off, by ex-cop A.B Patterson.
Jasper is proudly made on the cheap. Many filmmakers with imagination, something to say, or a knack for narrative have been able to bypass budgetary limitations. Nathan Hill is not this type of filmmaker. Jasper does have a couple of funny moments, decent acting, and the noir-ish soundtrack from the duo Ninja Academy and Jamie Murgatroyd is excellent. But it has nothing else going for it.
Jasper is a randy private eye. He’s a ‘chick magnet’ and there are a lot of not-very-steamy, totally gratuitous sex scenes, plus a vicious women’s boxing match that Jasper witnesses when arriving in Elmore. It’s all somewhat sexist and there’s a particularly sour note during the film’s finale – a violent act towards a woman. The woman, one of the boxers, is violent herself, but this can’t justify what happens – the fact that the scene is probably supposed to be funny (it’s hard to tell sometimes with Hill) makes it even worse.
Apart from less than a handful of decent moments, Jasper lacks electricity, fun, real romance and action. But it’s unlikely Hill cares about negative reviews, he’s been doing his genre thing for years, and made a stack of films on his own terms, and in some ways, he can be admired for marching to the beat of his own drum.
