Came a Hot Friday

A splendidly engaging Kiwi comic Western set in 1949 and based on the novel by the highly regarded novelist Ronald Hugh Morrieson. Two con-men who make a tidy if perilous living from scamming village bookmakers descend on a one-lamb town just as the local club-owner is committing a spot of arson and murder for the insurance money. After falling out with both clubman and bookie, the merry pranksters meet up with a bizarre Maori who lives in the woods and thinks he's a Mexican bandit, endure much violence, sexual chicanery and sundry perils, and don't end up with the gold. It's sometimes too chirpy and bumptious, and has a hideous sound-track, but it holds one and cheers the parts that even mint sauce cannot reach.