Bootleg

This is an interesting TV show, but I found it annoying that they made Melbourne look like it was England or something... the Victorian number plates on cars made it a bit obvious. For such a politically charged show show, i wouldn't think that ethnicity would be such an issue, and being Australian such a 'liability'.

The government imposes the ban on chocolate ! Well, that might be a stupid point to start a movie, but it handles the idea very well: if you forbide something that people want, they will fight to get it back. Black market will appear, and everybody that we know will suffer the consequences.

It is a good family movie, but also it works at another level: replace the word "chocolate" by "cocaine", "pot", "heroine", or "iron maiden LPs", and you'll get the idea. The writers have managed to understand the mechanics of the black market and all the clichés of the underground movements and put it into a nice Sunday evening cable movie. Of course that it went unnoticed under all the Harry Potter hype, but it has that kind of stories that will touch some kind of fiber in you, even with all those clichés flying around.

If this isn't one of the best ever family mini series, then please kill me. For i believe that the acting is brilliant, the stars know how to speak, yes, thats right, how to speak, and the plot is excellently drafted. On the whole i give the show a healthy 8/10. The acting is excellent, and the props are quite believable. You feel like becoming part of the show. Chocaholics are probably the target audience. Frankly, if chocolate isn't the main subject of the show, then it must be cocoa mass!!! Of course, it's great fun for all ages on a cold winter day when you don't want to see star wars of teletubbies, but something nice and relaxing, yet compelling drama.

I can't seem to find anything that is good about this miniseries. Why the hell would you ban chocolate when u could ban something far more practical like smoking or alcohol? Also the fact that its an Australian program and its all set in england and everyone is faking british accents is stupid. Overall i think that this show is Unrealistic and cheap.

I have only seen the first two episodes of this series so far, but one thing that has stuck in my mind is the similarities between this miniseries and the book '1984' by George Orwell. Since I enjoyed that book, I have found myself greatly enjoying this series.

The way I see it, the Good for You party (great name by the way) is like INGSOC in 1984, and the methods used against people who like chocolate are very much like the methods used by the Thought Police and the Ministry of Love. The preview shown for the third episode seems to confirm this.

However, Bootleg seems to be a lot more optimistic than 1984, although this may change later.

One thing that lets this series down is that it is supposed to be set in England, as shown by the use of pounds for money, but it is quite clearly filmed in Melbourne, Australia, and makes use of many Australian actors with obvious accents. This is really my only serious problem with this series.

Overall, this is a good series, and well worth a look if you have read 1984. If you enjoyed this series, I recommend obtaining a copy of the book 1984, so you can see where the writers got their ideas.

8/10