australian television information archive

BlackJack—review

Viewers who met maverick Sydney policeman Jack Kempson (Colin Friels) during his first BlackJack outing in March last year will notice a distinct difference in his second one.

In “Sweet Science”, Jack has really lightened up and so have his surroundings.

One of the distinctive features of the introductory telemovie, made in the hope that it would become the foundation for a franchise, was its grimy look and downbeat atmosphere.

It was shot with a deliberately dull colour palette—faded blues and dirty browns—and that murky mood was right in tune with both its crime story and the character of its protagonist.

As created by Shaun Micallef and Gary McCaffrie, Kempson was an astute and tenacious crime-fighter, but equally he was a frayed and weary shell of a man: a grieving widower, a whistleblower shunned by his cop mates, a troubled father to a disabled daughter.

In the second telemovie, Kempson has retained his gruff outsider status and renegade spirit but acquired new energy and new partners—in the office and beyond it.

And the world, while still nasty and crime-infested, seems a slightly sunnier place.

Here the atmosphere is one of action and bustling movement more than inevitable decay.

Peter Andrikidis (Grass Roots, Heroes’ Mountain), who also directed the first BlackJack, fills the frames with activity and uses long lenses to heighten the sense of hurly-burly.

There are numerous walking-and-talking scenes shot on crowded city streets.

There are also lots of those aerial helicopter shots over the city that are favoured by the Jerry Bruckheimer TV dramas such as CSI and Without a Trace.

It all helps to invest the story with a driving feeling of momentum.

Written by Kristen Dunphy (who was co-creator and head writer on White Collar Blue), “Sweet Science” seems to take Melbourne’s Jason Moran case as its launching pad.

A man is shot dead at a children’s soccer game, in front of his horrified family.

Twelve years later, the case remains unsolved. The dead man’s sons, Luke (Alex O’Lachlan) and Brad (Anthony Hayes,) have grown to adulthood nursing deep suspicion and resentment about the police and their failure to find the killer.

His widow, Stella (Nina Landis), a woman with equal parts warmth and steely resolve, has tried to move on with her life and run her cafe business as best she can.

Following the discovery of the gun that killed the soccer dad, who is revealed to be career crim Pete Alexander, back in 1992, Kempson’s investigation finds links between that crime and a more recent armed robbery. And there the plot thickens.

Like the first BlackJack, this one is invigorated by a fine supporting cast, which also includes David Field as Jack’s snaky superior, Chris Haywood as a onetime associate of the dead man, and Vince Colosimo as a security van driver.

As Kempson’s computer-literate new sidekick, Sam, Marta Dusseldorp adds vitality and humour, and Doris Younane is still a treat as the boxing forensics whiz.

As crime stories go, it’s interesting that BlackJack should appear—and actually precede—the currently flourishing batch of TV cold-case units.

There’s a growing army of TV crime-fighting types intent on solving old cases, ones on which the trail has presumably gone cold.

Now they’re able to deploy new technology in the quest to solve all-but-forgotten mysteries. And there’s something comforting in the premise of these shows, in the idea that justice, in the end, will be done, even if it might take decades.

But BlackJack has a notable difference from its American counterparts. The US crime-busters are dedicated and utterly incorruptible.

In the Australian telemovie, many of the cops around Jack and Sam—some of them Jack’s old buddies—continue to look as shifty as the crims they’re chasing.

By Debi Enker
November 04, 2004
The Age