Deep Water

It is natural that Australia, having lengthy (dependent) ties with the UK, aspires to imitate/repeat the latter's success in the field of crime thrillers, stocking it with local nature and habits, sometimes without having any influence to the course of events or effect on scenes. A lot of is also visible in Deep Water where tautness and smoothness are overshadowed by personal issues with references to the past and leisure activities on the beach.

Well, the beginning is intriguing, but the motives and many suspects are revealed too soon, the characters are somewhat arid, the police has seemingly no ranking order in place, and the background of the principal wrongdoer is too trivial and vague for the offences he committed. So the 4 episodes a' 50 minutes are too long and hectic; moreover, I was not pleased with the final events and events leading up to them. In the wide world of English-speaking crime drama series, Deep Water is hardly the one to be classified as "must-watch".

It's Australia Day. Police detectives Tori Lustigman and Nick Manning are assigned the murder of Haris Rexhaj in his Bondi beach condo. He's a young gay Muslim. Tori suspects the homophobic neighbor but her superior directs them to the gay lover Rohan Assad. Rohan fears being deported to Iran. Further investigation uncovers a possible serial killer targeting homosexuals using a gay dating app. Tori is a single mom and new to the force from Goulburn. She is still haunted by a childhood incident with her gay brother.

This is a functional crime drama. There is a bit of ripped-from-the-headlines flavor. It does need a few more ingredients to extend this drama into a compelling 4 hour watch. Tori's childhood incident could have been heightened by doing a flashback. Her recollection of the incident is probably an emotional high point. The other part that needs expanding is the villain of the piece. It needs to make the supervisor a bigger character and more culpable. The story needs more drama and a bit more flavoring.

How is this diminutive detective (played by Yael Stone) supposed to run down bad guys in boots with 3 inch heels. Why couldn't the director just accept she's only 5 feet tall and let her wear sneakers? Is there some sort of cinematographic rule against letting short people be short? Ironic because the director seemingly has no problem repeatedly filming closeups of her dwarfish, stubby fingers.

I'm only on Episode 3, and so far it's pretty good - the writing and acting are certainly above average...

... but the DIRECTING/CINEMATOGRAPHY! Yikes!

The show has a surfeit of close-ups and extreme close-ups that are distracting in that their use both draws attention to itself and also robs the shots of any emotional power - like a TEXT MESSAGE IN ALL CAPS - they become meaningless after a while. I don't know if this was a stylistic or budgetary choice, but a lot of the intensity of some scenes was seriously curtailed by its overuse.

Show some restraint next time!

Deep Water is, for the most part, an engaging Australian crime/thriller series with a qualifier.....

In my opinion there's a discernible thread of rather brittle, well worn political correctness that would have best been discarded in favour of a more down to earth approach. The key character is buttoned up to a degree that undermines the simple, flawed humanity we all share. Instead she comes across as a poster boy (oops I mean girl) for the kind of saccharine, intolerant, tolerance, we have all been force fed by big government and its mainstream media stooges, over the last 20 or so years.

Her colleague, who seems infinitely more real as a person, is often a sounding board for her somewhat prickly "tut-tutting". Its a shame what, I feel, is a timid, almost apologetic, approach to scripting, has been adopted. Mainly because, in all other respects, Deep Water is a very engaging, intelligently written and well acted mini series.

In summary another decent Aussie series that has an important message about intolerance which, I believe, would have benefited from a more open and down to earth approach. Still a worthy watch. Eight out of ten from me.