Movie review - "The Clean Machine" (1988) **1/2

 Kennedy Miller's TV series of the 1980s gripped the nation - they were all watercooler shows. They made four TV movies in 1988 as well for $7.2 million... none seemed to have the same impact except for The Year My Voice Broke which was released as a feature. They also did Sports Crazy a TV series which no one seems to remember.

This is a look at corruption in the NSW police force, which has provided some of our best dramas - Scales of Justice, Blue Murder. This suffers in comparison to that. It's got this sort of TV sting music and some on the nose dialogue (Terry Hayes, normally so good, wrote it with Richard Mortlock and director Ken Cameron).

The plot has a new state government appoint traffic cop Steve Bisley to form an anti corruption task force. Ed Devereaux is his boss. The team also includes Sandy Gore, Peter Kowitz, Marshall Napier, Mervyn Drake, and Tony Poli. Problems emerge when Bisley gets close to some really bad cops including Grigor Taylor as a Roger Rogerson type and they wonder if Devereaux is corrupt.

There are some effective moments particularly when the heat turns up on the corruption team but it didn't quite work for me. It didn't feel tonally consistent - part ep of a typical cop show, part realism (eg a stake out interrupted by the noise of a lawn mower), part of it based on cases I recognised (eg taking a shot at Bisley at home was like the shooting of Michael Drury in Blue Murder). I also got confused at times as to what was going on.

It lacked focus. It was about Bisley... then it was also about Kowitz, as a sort of dodgy undercover cop, and Napier.

Bisley is an odd-ish choice for a nerdy cop - but the moustache helps. (Also... his house has a pool... I didn't realise cops could afford them). Tim Robertson plays a character called "Milius".

There's a Down Syndrome character - Deveraux's son. Kennedy Miller used that in Mad Max 1 and 2.

Female roles aren't great. Bisley's wife is concerned (she's a good actor), a girl gives Devereaux massages, Robertson has some hot girl, Sandy Gore ia part of the team but doesn't really do anything. 

This was fine. Not terrible. Just not up to the standard of their other stuff. Hayes was writing Dead Calm and Bangkok Hilton around this time, his attention span was probably not great.

The Age 1 July 1988

The Age 21 May 1988