Fly By Night

Do you like your gangland boss to chuckle and gloat over his victims? Do you like your detective to be cool and suave? Do you like to see your protagonists trapped in an impossible situation? Fly By Night ticks all these boxes and more. While there is nothing new in the plot, it more than makes up for that in style and tension. The protagonists are a small family taxi company in Kuala Lumpur which supplements its income with slick an extortion racket that operates below the radar of both the local gangsters and the police ... until a mark unexpectedly escalates things and one of the boys is a sore loser at the neighbourhood casino bring the family to the attention of the owner (played by Frederick Lee channelling Jack Nicholson in a scenery-chewing performance). Meanwhile, Inspector Kamal is lazily circling the family like an inquisitive shark.

Who is who?

It took a few minutes to work out the relationships between the characters at the start of the film and the ending is ambiguous. But otherwise, this is an enjoyable, often funny ride where, like a traditional noir, no-one is good - even the wronged girlfriend. The action scenes are sharp. There is no shortage of violence. And New Zealand gets mentioned a couple of times.

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Ian's rating 3.5/5