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A New Zealand black comedy which is heavily weighted in favour of the former rather than the latter, Two Little Boys will no doubt attract fans of its leading men, Bret McKenzine (one half of Flight of the Conchords) and Hamish Blake (the funny half of Oz radio duo, Hamish and Andy), and bitterly disappoint them all.
Nige (McKenzie) and Deano (Blake) have been best buds since primary school, where Deano always had the back of his smaller friend. Now grown men in Invercargill in 1993, the pair have had a falling out. Nige, a teller in the local bank, has become friends with Gav (Maaka Pohatu), a security guard, and Deano is not happy. Considering Nige's new friendship as an act of betrayal (unfaithfulness even), Deano has kicked him out of the one bedroom flat they've no doubt shared since leaving high school.
But when Nige accidentally runs down and kills a Norwegian backpacker, he has no one to turn to but Deano. And Deano seizes this opportunity to reclaim his place in the life, and heart, of Nige.
First things first, they have to get rid of the body, a task which Deano takes to with ever growing zeal. And when a weekend trip to the New Zealand countryside to do just that sees the affable - and oblivious - man mountain, Gav, tagging along, Deano decides it may just be the perfect opportunity to kill a second bird with one stone.
Robert Sarkies' film, co-written with brother Duncan, may have been intended as a black comedy on good friendship turned sour but other than some flashbacks and fantasy sequences, and the initial shock of seeing our protagonists sporting bad mullets and equally as bad denim, the laughs are few and far between.
Not that McKenzie and Blake aren't good. They are, as is Pohatu, but there's so much that falls flat or isn't properly developed (Deano's unhealthy obsession with Nige, for instance) that you wouldn't be at all surprised to see the wind, which blows hard and often across the New Zealand coastline, toss up a tumbleweed or two.
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