TIFF Review: Simon Rex Gets Villainous In Sharp Yet Superficial God Bless You, Mr. Kopu

Does it feel like we’re stuck in VHS nostalgia? The New Zealand crime drama God Bless You, Mr. Kopu introduces its villain, the American salesman Marco Cass (Simon Rex), through the prism of a VHS infomercial—complete with tracking lines over images of him lounging in a pool while shilling for a cleaning product and the lavish lifestyle that selling it will entail. Set in 1993, the film captures a Southern Hemisphere nation catching up to the hyper-capitalism of 1980s America. We may increasingly fetishize the VCR, but those memories of popping in a tape remain deeply intertwined with the cultural dominance of a now-fading empire.

Though Rex’s “white devil” is expectedly excellent, he isn’t the central focus—nor the title character. That would be Mafu Kopu (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi, recognizable as the lead Yautja in Predator: Badlands). A Tongan immigrant desperate for work in an increasingly Americanized New Zealand, he turns to a familiar last resort: scammers posing as businessmen. Becoming a door-to-door salesman for the cleaning product, he’s assured he will rise from his entry-level position and shit pay if he just maintains a positive attitude.

After a string of failed sales pitches, Mafu by chance crosses paths in a bar with the product’s white-suited figurehead, Marco. Seeing promise in the young man’s naivete and honesty, Marco takes him under his wing and introduces him to the secret trick behind his success: hypnosis. Now able to pitch the bogus product with ease, Mafu finally watches the money and women roll in, leaving him to wonder whether he is merely a pawn in a more sinister game.

Mr. Kopu‘s political framing is sharp, showcasing a largely Indigenous and immigrant cast sold a lie by a typical American huckster running on the fumes of Reagan-era promises. Both men are outsiders in their own right, but Marco leverages the tricks of his homeland to dominate a market where, back home, he might have been just another mediocre wannabe. Simon Rex, the surprise-comeback actor of the 2020s, brings immediate subtext through his casting alone. Still charming, quick-witted, and ridiculously handsome, Rex was nevertheless cast aside by a culture that moved past 1990s MTV. It isn’t hard to imagine him off in distant territories, chasing co-production work much like the sleazy Marco.

Yet one has to ask: is Mr. Kopu itself, with its largely traditional rise-and-fall structure, coasting on past eras of American cinema? Its pivot to a bloody climax betrays the pressure to adhere to familiar Hollywood formulas. It is as if Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction—masterpieces though they are—continue to exert their own brand of colonial influence on contemporary filmmaking. Consequently, one wishes Mafu’s family dynamic and cultural heritage were fleshed out rather than merely gestured toward, which would have given this film’s tug-of-war between competing influences far more emotional weight.

Ultimately, it’s unfortunate that Mr. Kopu struggles to fully execute its rich themes, relying instead on conventional tropes. Well-paced and smartly cast, it hums along nicely enough—you just wish what it was selling didn’t feel quite as superficial as an infomercial pitch.

God Bless You, Mr. Kopu premiered at TIFF 2026.