Spooked Review from the 2004 Hamburg Film Festival

American Women's Club of Hamburg

Kirsten Greco - 4 stars - Good Movie - Worth Going to see.



Based loosely on a true story, Spooked is a conspiracy thriller about second-hand computer dealer Kevin (Christopher Hobbs), who buys some old computers and floppy disks, only to find sensitive bank data on the disks. He thinks he can make a quick buck by offering to sell the disks back to the bank; instead, the bank accuses him of extortion, and he’s suddenly being followed, his phones are tapped, and he gets beat up. Is the bank really involved in a vast conspiracy, or is Kevin just being paranoid? When an investigative reporter (Cliff Curtis of Whale Rider) starts looking into the story, things really get out of hand.

Writer/director Geoff Murphy (Young Guns II, Freejack, second unit director on The Lord of the Rings) got the idea for the story from the book The Paradise Conspiracy by Ian Wishart, which was about a New Zealander who found sensitive bank information on computer disks in 1992 and subsequently died under mysterious circumstances. Using the real incident as a jumping off point, Murphy created this story in part as a commentary on New Zealand’s place in the global political scene. Everyone involved in the film is from New Zealand, and Murphy aimed it at a New Zealand audience. But even we non-Kiwis can appreciate the tight storytelling, good acting, interesting camera angles, and biting humor on display in Spooked.





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