As I have mentioned the Jack Irish TV series in a couple of other posts, I thought I would do a quick comment since the first telemovie premiered last night on Australian TV. If you read my Crime Fiction Round the World Trip, post about Melbourne and the novels of Peter Temple you would know that I was not all that blown away by the novel Bad Debts on which the first TV show was based. For some reason I could not quite get into it fully.
The same has to be said for the TV show. It was good don’t get me wrong, the performances were top notch, especially Marta Dusseldorp I thought. And Aaron Pedersen was cool with his beard and kicking some butt. It was a little like a who’s who of Australian actors, and it was nice to get a change on the ABC from all that BBC and British TV. But I could not quite get fully into it. Too much padding with unneeded stuff. I reckon the director thought……OK Melbourne is well known (or wants to be) for its street art/graffiti so lets do as many scenes as possible with the characters working past walls with street art on it.
To sum it up, good at the start, lagged in the middle, and good at the end.
Interesting to see if there will be more than the two shows for the moment. Depends on how well Guy Pearce’s Hollywood career goes, which considering I can’t remember the last thing he was in (apart from being hidden behind old man make-up in Prometheus), it might not be great at the moment.
