Napier Siege film premieres Sunday
A two-hour television movie based on the Napier siege three years ago will be shown on TV One this weekend.
Filmed mainly in Napier last year and entitled simply Siege, it will show in the Sunday Theatre slot on Sunday starting at 8.30pm.
It features UK-born New Zealand actor Mark Mitchinson in the role of drug dealer and gunman Jan Molenaar.
Molenaar's shooting of three police officers and a friend who intervened outside his home in Chaucer Rd about 9.30am on May 7, 2009, sparked the 53-hour siege.
Mitchinson has played a variety of roles including former Police Commissioner Bob Walton in Rage, a tale relating to the turbulent times of the 1981 Springboks rugby tour of New Zealand, and Colin Bouwer, now serving 15 years for murdering his wife at the end of 1999.
Darren Young, one of the actors who played Brutus in Xena: Warrior Princess plays Senior Constable Len Snee, whose inquisitiveness after catching a whiff of cannabis while on a morning jog led to the planning of the drugs search in which he was shot dead by Molenaar.
Widow Vicki Snee is played by Miriama Smith, also a veteran of Xena and whose other credits include Shortland Street and a semifinal in the 2008 series of Dancing With the Stars.
Veteran television and show business identities Laurie Dee and Ray Woolf also appear; Dee is Napier area police commander Inspector Kevin Kalff and Woolf is civilian rescuer Gary Fraser.
Angered when he returned from a Thursday morning walk with his dog and found the search under way, Molenaar grabbed a gun and opened fire.
He shot and killed Mr Snee and seriously wounded officers Bruce Miller and Grant Diver, and civilian Lenny Holmwood.
They were all taken to hospital with serious injuries after being rescued in a variety of heroic acts also depicted in the movie.
Molenaar fired more than 100 shots around his neighbourhood which was placed in lockdown.
Dozens of people were unable to return to their homes until the siege ended about midday on the Saturday when officers entered the house and confirmed Molenaar was dead.
The movie, produced by Screentime, will be followed next Tuesday by a documentary Siege: The Interviews in which Senior Constables Miller and Diver tell their stories.
