MESSAGE MAN

OUT 17 AUGUST / DIGITAL / CERT TBC / 91 MINS DIRECTOR Corey Pearson CAST Paul O’brien, Aji Santosa, Verdi Solaiman

Indonesian action cinema became world-famous with the release of Gareth Evans’ The Raid in 2011. Message Man is, technically, an Indonesian action film, but the similarities stop there. Instead, it’s a kind of pound-shop John Wick, following a high-skillset former assassin forced back into One Last Job by baddies who don’t realise what they’re up against. Home And Away star Paul O’brien plays a mysterious Aussie hunk who retires to a remote Indonesian archipelago to fish with a bow and arrow and spend more time with his smoulder, only for the past to catch up with him. The story is sluggish, derivative and conspicuously white saviour-ist, and its B-movie budget often feels obvious. But the action, when it finally comes, is sharp, savage and competently satisfying.