The Broken Shore

I saw The Broken Shore at the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2013, and thought it was a great homage to the book by Peter Temple. Without giving too much away before it airs on the ABC in 2014, there is some good acting by all involved, and the screenplay has been well written by Andrew Knight (using mystery and humour).

The one thing I will say about The Broken Shore is (and this was mentioned on the night of the screening) that it would have been good if it was made into a 6x1 hour mini series, which would have meant that more from the book could have been mentioned/explored. An example of this is the character of Erica Burgouyne, who seems quite interesting in the book (and in the movie as well) however she only has a couple of scenes in the movie.

However, overall, The Broken Shore is quite good for what it is and it will be interesting to read what other people think once it has aired on television.

And here we go again. A completely over-baked, slow production from an over-baked, slow book.

A lead character we are supposed to sympathise with, as he plods around oppressing people's rights and basically being a useless jerk-off.

Side characters we are utterly unable to care about.

A completely inaccurately portrayed police force, with logic-holes all over the place.

Dreadful, idiotic flashbacks.

And then a dreadful, idiotic main arc.

Stop it! Just STOP it! Make something good for once!

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This was a very, very well made film. Great direction, super tight production, excellent cinematography with gorgeous exteriors of Southeast Australia. Wonderful performances and very well fleshed out characters, this was a intimate and very strong story that you just don't find that often.

It is not a typical Australian production. Having said that I tend to like Australian film a lot, but this was very different.

I highly recommend this movie, it felt like a very mature piece of filmmaking, very very well written and executed.

This movie to my mind is just perfectly made.. a couple of stilted actors in bit parts but that is such a small issue. Its easy to fall into this film and never want to leave. The characters are great, well formed, the dialogue is sparse and interesting, the filming is top notch - to me its the best look i've seen in any modern TV from Asutralia. I really hope to see more like this.

There's undercurrents both metaphorical and literal. There's the everyday but interesting police business. There's bad and good cops. There's old and new crimes, histories in each character. This film has it all.

There's the odd cliché but it flies past and the chunks are joined expertly.

Its a bit of a shame this was made for TV, cos I imagine it won't be eligible for the awards it should get.

As previously written, "The one thing I will say about The Broken Shore is . . . that it would have been good if it was made into a 6x1 hour mini series".

I agree totally.

This is a well paced, interesting movie which discloses much about Australian culture (which only an Australian could certify as true) set in a sometimes bleak but more often beautiful setting.

The pace reminded me of a Morse episode, but with a younger, excellent actor Don Hany.

The story appears to head toward a familiar ending. However, the ending is more satisfying than expected.

The movie begs for a sequel.