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.

Slow burner and better than most Netflix produced drama. Worth a watch.

... although I didn't see it happen as I was distracted by watching (much of) this telemovie.

This was a competently created but by-the-numbers sort of show.

We have our hero for is an anti-hero, damaged goods, but well meaning. Not liked by the 'bad guys' in the police force but respected by his old boss.

And so on it goes. I assume a whyteboard session was used to created the original story and all of the boxes ticked to created a formula story.

Now, I should note that I am not a woman and I got the feeling that the target audience for this is more 'sheila' than 'bloke'.

Some have suggested that this set of characters be turned in to a series. It doesn't worry me. I wouldn't watch them.

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.