THE MOVIE

Neddy Smith (Tony Martin) was one of Australia’s most notorious criminals, but he used to be nothing more than a two-bit crim before meeting detective sergeant Roger ’The Dodge’ Rogerson (Richard Roxburgh). He is a bit of legend, locking up numerous criminals. Little did most people, apart from his corrupt colleagues, realise that his successes were due to alliances with criminals like Neddy Smith who he offered police protection in exchange for tip-offs and monetary payouts.

Small time drug dealer Neddy Smith makes a deal with Roger Rogerson to stay out of jail and it ends up costing him. Every time Rogerson needs a favour, he approaches Neddy, like the time he asked Neddy to take Brian Alexander, a shonky solicitor, out on his boat. Neddy did as he was told, took Brian out on his boat and threw him overboard, tied to a old iron stove. Neddy gets back into dealing with mates Abo (Peter Phelps) and Warren (Alex Dimitriades) so when Abo gets caught for possession, Neddy owes Rogerson yet another favour to ensure that Abo only goes inside for a year. Then when Warren starts robbing banks with some of his other mates, Rogerson asks Neddy to arrange a meeting so that he can be done in. Warren’s girlfriend Sallie-Anne approaches the media, realising he’s been murdered, but no one will listen to her, she’s just a junkie and a prostitute, no one’s going to take her word over that of the police.

Michael Drury (Steve Bastoni) is the opposite of Rogerson, an honest cop. He’s a family man. He’s not dirty like Rogerson. He hates working interstate though. After three months working a heroin case, his colleagues in Melbourne rush in too soon and they subsequently lose one of the suspects, Alan Williams (Marcus Graham). He is later apprehended, although then Rogerson meets up with Drury and offers him a bribe, $15-25,000 to see that Williams gets off. Drury declines the offer. Williams somehow manages to stay out of jail despite the evidence Drury presents in court. Now just like Neddy, Rogerson has Williams over a barrel.

Since Drury failed to cooperate, Rogerson conspires to murder him. A guy by the name of Christopher Dale Flannery (Gary Sweet) shoots him at his house one evening, but somehow Drury manages to survive, even though his wounds are quite severe. Angus McDonald (Bill Hunter), the highest ranking detective in the state, and a mate of Rogerson, takes charge of investigation. Rogerson is later charged with two counts of attempting to bribe a public officer and subsequently suspended. A big court case follows, Williams agrees to testify. Even Warren’s girlfriend wants to help police collect evidence against these corrupt cops. So Neddy is called in again to silence her, but eventually the bad guys get their comeuppance.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

This mini-series is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 full frame. The transfer does have a certain degree of clarity about it, but unfortunately it also suffers from a stack of low-level grain. This transfer also suffers from numerous film artefacts, white and black scratches and spots which are mainly visible on light coloured backgrounds. Shadow detail isn’t the best and the darker night-time scenes and interior scenes look noticeably more grainy, but even the daytime (well lit) scenes often suffer from background noise and appear to shimmer quite badly during certain scenes. Check out the wood grain of the witness box in the courtroom in chapter 11 (45.23 minutes) to see what I mean.

I must also tell you that Blue Murder features some terribly shonky camera work, with over the shoulder-type filming of the fast action sequences. It’s very unsteady at times and the rapid cuts between scenes is almost dizzying to watch during certain parts of this film. Colours are okay, but washed out, this does work quite well, effectively communicating the era in which this story is set (1970’s to 1980’s).

Audio:

Blue Murder comes with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 channel soundtrack. This soundtrack is acceptable, but nothing special. There is no surround effects obviously, and attempting to listen to this soundtrack in Dolby Pro Logic will probably just annoy you as all you get are these distracting echo effects, it’s almost as if you’re listening to a PA system. Anyway, for the most part, dialogue appears to be clear enough, well except for Tony Martin (Ned) who tends to mumble a bit, at least Richard Roxburgh enunciates his words clearly. Some of the sound effects and during the action scenes tends to down out the dialogue a little, but other than that, there aren’t any other major problems with this soundtrack.

THE EXTRAS

This DVD is completely devoid of extra features, it doesn’t even have any TV Ads for this mini-series. This DVD doesn’t even have subtitles, which is pretty bad.

SUMMARY

Blue Murder is an ABC television mini-series based on real life police corruption and crime stories in New South Wales. It stars some great Australian actors including Tony Martin, Richard Roxburgh, Steve Bastoni and Alex Dimitriades. I wish I could say that I enjoyed this mini-series, but it’s overly violent and the lengthy story failed to keep me entertained despite the solid performances by all involved. Visually this film is all over the place and it’s full of low-level noise which becomes a bit annoying after a while. Audio is acceptable, but there aren’t any extras on this DVD though.