This isn’t as good as the first one, as was widely reported at the time, but there’s still lots of great stuff. You just wish it was better because it could have been – there’s great material with Donald Mackay, Terry Clark, Bob Trimbole, the Kane brothers, etc. But they seem too obsessed with finding links for things, having cause and effect, planting characters earlier - leading to them making stuff up when they didn’t have to. Like having Clark meet Trimbole before the Mackay stuff, distorting the Great Bookie Robbery.
I think they also made the mistake of placing too much importance on nudity; some of it is fine, it is part of the series’ appeal, but they went overboard here and it distorts the end product. For instance, Alison Dine is exploited so much it becomes irritating after a while (life drawing?); and Chris Flannery was meant to be a devoted family man under the thumb of his wife – a really interesting dramatic situation, but instead they show him in bed with two bimbos or at strip clubs.
The most effective stuff is the true stuff – the shooting of Don Mackay, the corruption of the NSW cops, the Kane feud with Ray Chuck, the murder of Les Kane the capture of Terry Clark in the UK (why leave out the fact Clark induced his own heart attack to move to a hospital as park of an escape attempt but ended up dying accidentally?). It is a genuinely interesting story – a lot more so than the third installment.
It does clunk when it comes up against other tv shows and movies which have handled this material. For instance Dustin Claire’s Chris Flannery, with his giggle and speech impediment, compares poorly to Gary Sweet’s work in Blue Murder (Claire is agonisingly irritating in the last two eps); the guy who mimics Eric Bana as Chopper just makes you aware he isn’t as good as Eric Bana; the stuff about the green light and the depiction of Brian Alexander’s murder at the hands of the cops only makes you appreciate how better Blue Murder did it (why not avoid this, omit mention of Blue Murder altogether and show an alternative theory of how Alexander died, i.e. by killing himself.)
Acting-wise there is some superb work from Nathan Page (Ray Chuck), Tim McGann (Brian Kane), Kate Ritchie (who really looks like a crim’s wife), Scott Burgess (terrifying as a very Aussie assassin, always whingeing and devoted to his dogs) – and pretty good work from Asher Keddie, Martin Dingle-Wall and yes Matt Newton (lots of people bagged him but I thought he was fine – and besides who else would you have cast?). Roy Billing is a debit – I know why he was cast (who else would look as close) but he’s too lightweight. (The scenes with him and his Sydney mistress are dull and go on and on.)
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