Never Say Die 1988

After a long spell of homesickness, Temuera Morrison plays Alf Winters, and his wife, Lisa Eilbacher Melissa Jones, return to New Zealand. A delay at customs irks Alf, and they head back to their old home, only to find that the utilities have just been switched back on. Upon their arrival, the house is destroyed in a dramatic gas explosion, shattering any sense of safety and normalcy they hoped to reclaim.

Feeling unsettled and convinced something intentional lies behind the blast, Alf reports his suspicions to Insp. Evans, Tony Barry. Evans, however, is skeptical, chalking Alf’s fears up to paranoia and anger rather than evidence. The situation grows more tense when Alf later survives a car crash that appears to be the result of cut brakes. A forensic read of Alf’s car hints that shrapnel from the explosion could have damaged the braking system, blurring the line between accident and attack and forcing Evans to reconsider his initial judgments.

Seeking refuge and perhaps proving his case, Alf and Melissa retreat to a country house on Waiheke Island. Here Alf’s paranoia escalates into a cautious vigilance: he sets up a perimeter with tripwires and noise-dampening kitchen utensils, and he arms himself with a small-bore rabbit hunting rifle. Their fragile sense of safety is further strained when a hunter, played by Ian Richard Stewart as Hunter, butchers the quiet by firing at Melissa. Alf intervenes, and in a tense moment, kills the hunter with his rifle. The event shakes Alf’s already fragile grip on reality and raises questions about the weapon’s zeroing and the plausibility of a single, precise shot in the chaos surrounding them.

Even as the evidence heaps up, Insp. Evans remains wary. He notices the unzeroed sights on Alf’s weapon and notes that a small-caliber rifle makes a single, clean kill seem unlikely—an observation that blurs the line between coincidence and conspiracy. The detective’s skepticism begins to wane as the couple comes under more direct threat, though he still struggles to reconcile Alf’s insistence with what he can prove.

Their flight continues to the West Coast of the South Island, where danger follows close behind. A helicopter delivers two assassins with fully automatic weapons who then destroy the property where Alf and Melissa are staying. This audacious strike pushes Evans toward a reluctant acknowledgment: Alf might be onto something real after all. The pursuit becomes a relentless cross-country chase across New Zealand, featuring high-octane car chases, repeated assassination attempts, and running references to 007 that punctuate the peril at every turn.

Eventually, the pair make their way back toward civilization, culminating at Auckland Airport. There, a meeting with Melissa’s father’s lawyer—who recently passed away—begins to peel back the layers of motive and deception, revealing the true intentions behind the attacks and pointing to the real culprit behind the conspiracy. In a story that blends paranoia, action, and a relentless pursuit across familiar landscapes, Alf and Melissa confront a plot that tests their nerves, their bond, and their faith in the world they thought they’d left behind.