Mr. Reliable

Colin Friels and Jacqueline McKenzie star in this comic retelling of an Australian news event of the summer of 1968. After trying to quietly set up house with his girlfriend (McKenzie) and her baby daughter, petty thief Wally Mellish (Friels) gets into an altercation with a cop. Soon this escalates into an extended stand-off, which the police mistakenly assume is a dangerous hostage crisis requiring reinforcements and trained snipers. Nadia Tass (Malcolm) directs this sleeper from Down Under, praised by Time Out for its “deft comic touches.”