Informer 3838

The Melbourne Gangland war was the bloodiest in any gangland war in Australia, so the cast of course are following what happened during those years. Gyton Grantley, Robert Mammone returning to the roles that made them famous with a stellar cast (new to the Underbelly universe or returning) providing excellent storyline telling, even with the events ripped from the headlines, the cast and crew put their lives at risk to make sure the story was told..

A sometimes graphic look behind some of the recent police and justice systems in Australia which will dampen some people's lofty ideals but really does show how intricately corrupt and self serving it all is even these days. Gobbo must have been allowed some literary controls on this script because it paints her a way too glamorously IMHo and not only at the quite attractive and balanced lead when the reality was that she was nowhere near that. However, if you'd seen the Underbelly series this ties up some of the loose ends to the Melbourne series. This is a must watch if you want a peek behind the real (in)justice system in that superb Australian series.

I absolutely love the underbelly series but unfortunately this one was just not what we are used to

The next time someone asks you to describe an underbelly failure, give them this and vanishing act. Absolute trash. It was one of the weakest in the underbelly universe and that is saying something as the other one with Melissa Caddick was just a laugh. The two actors playing the Hodsons both sound like the accents they were going for got lost and were confused, and normally i love Rhys Muldoon but here? Nah, and Jacquie? Jacquie of all people should've just passed on this, was the director trying to traumatise the poor woman? Ella Scott Lynch deserved a much better script a less bland real life person.

I think this mini-series makes more sense to Victorian or even Australian residents. It is the latest of the Underbelly cash cow spins offs and although not as good as Underbelly it still managed to keep me interested and engaged enough. Partially because I complemented it with ABC's podcast Trace - the Informer.

Let's face it, Carl Williams (Gyton Grantley) and Tony Mokbel (Robert Mammone) are amongst some of the best locally grown actors but in this mini-series they did look tired, worn out and not as engaged as in the previous series.

Nevertheless, I still found myself enjoying the series all the way to the end mostly because in the end of the day it's true crime and as such, I found it still hard to understand how our modern justice system allowed this level of corruption to go on for such a long time.

Anyways, I do recommend this to any fan of true crime but you'll need to do your own research to better understand the story behind it as the main Underbelly series, due to at time's ongoing court proceedings, did not cover Nicola Gobbo's story.