A Review of ‘Jasper’: A detective farce that stays on course for most part
A private eye gets mixed up with prostitutes and gangsters while searching for a missing child.
‘Jasper’: A detective farce that stays on course for most part
Cast: Nathan Hill, Sandy Greenwood, Catherine Mack, Stewart Marshall, Sarah Howett, Candice Day, Sage Godrei, Max Marchione, Nancy Rizk, Julian Pillirone, Tania Wieclaw, Karen Orford, Liam Beattie, Sally Anne Arnott, Michael Chambers, Dan Andrusiak, Glenn Clemann, Amazona Ettedgui
Critic’s Rating: 3 Stars out of 5
Director: Nathan Hill
Duration: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Genre: Crime, Comedy, Romance
Language: English
Release: 2011
What’s it about?
A private eye gets mixed up with prostitutes and gangsters while searching for a missing child.
Review:
Jasper is a comic crime caper that is fairly well mounted but in the end stays mildly satisfying. Narrated in the vein of Film Noir with a hard-boiled private investigator, who is drawn into a game of cat and mouse, the film is unable to live up to its promising premise. Though it still holds up as a moderately engaging viewing experience, the movie’s juxtaposition of droll humour and gritty action lands at times and at times it misses the mark. The plot is populated with several characters that could have been better defined, yet the story does throw up a few surprises which include an unexpected ending. This in itself is the most rewarding part of watching this crime saga.
The film opens with the titular protagonist (Nathan Hill) all set to hang up his boots when he decides to take on a final assignment. Jasper arrives at the house of a prostitute named Courtney (Sandy Greenwood), who implores him to track down her little son. The desperate woman claims that the boy has been abducted on the orders of her boss – a mobster named Danvers (Liam Beattie). She tries to offset Jasper’s reluctance to initiate the hunt by engaging him in an amorous tryst. But two thugs intrude on them, kidnapping her and knocking out Jasper. With only the name of Danvers’ town to go on, Jasper embarks on an apparent wild goose chase.
However, his luck soon changes when he encounters a hitch-hiker (Stewart Marshall) and then, the receptionist at an inn. Physically attracted to Jasper, the latter who reveals her name is "Cuddles", lures him into having sex. When her jealous boyfriend Ralph (Max Marchione) arrives on the scene, Jasper pre-empts a violent confrontation by pulling a gun on him before leaving in a huff. After a close encounter with two aggressive motorcyclists, Jasper’s investigation leads him to a couple of brothels, which in turn, direct him to a pub. From here the plot thickens considerably, leaving the audience wondering whether Jasper will eventually confront Danvers and find Courtney and her son. Furthermore, who is the other shady character (Kindar A. Soares) in pursuit of the mob boss?
Throughout Jasper’s adventure, it appears that he is sexually irresistible to the women he meets. Though this tendency seems funny at first, it winds up becoming slightly repititive even though it is amusing at first. This, especially given that Jasper doesn’t really put the moves on the women himself. Also, his entanglements with Danvers’ henchmen are sinister and pave te way for some much-needed action. Beyond this, the film does have one intriguing revelation up its sleeve, which concerns the identity of Courtney’s child.
Though director and co-writer Nathan Hill attempts to realise a tongue-in-cheek take on the Noir genre, his project could have benefited from a few more gags or wise-cracks along the way. The plot’s trajectory, while mildly entertaining is more whimsical than logical, perhaps by design. The cinematography and editing occasionally suffer from an amateurish quality, and the performances just about pull through. The fabric of the humour in the screenplay needs some getting used to. Still, despite its flaws, Jasper might induce the audience into considering the flick to be mostly original. After all, here is an Australian production that shows us how a hero from Down Under strives to come up tops.
