TV Cream

Films: S is for...

Smash Palace

Roger Donaldson really hit his stride with this harrowing melodrama, in which a middle-aged car-obsessed father (played by cult NZ star, ex-Brightonian jazz drummer Bruno Lawrence) responds to his collapsing marriage by kidnapping his daughter and making for those photogenically remote landscapes. Smash Palace helped put NZ cinema firmly on the map and launched Donaldson into international league. After helming The Bounty (1984), a lavish telling of the naval chestnut with Mel Gibson as Mr Christian and Anthony Hopkins as Capt Bligh, came the likes of Cocktail, Species and, er, Cadillac Man.
ALSO WITH TERENCE ‘JASON’ DONOVAN

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