What are the chances that an Australian made-for-TV film shown on the BBC around midnight would be worth watching? But I thought it was worth writing about BlackJack because I came away with such a high opinion of the quality of story writing by Gary McCaffrie and Shaun Micallef. As I go on to explain, the storyline showed a depth of insight into the human condition that still has me reflecting on the issues that were dealt with. I really enjoyed this film.
When I turned it on, about 15 minutes after the start, I was in channel hopping mode, ready to go to bed, but the eerie scenes where a boy keeps walking past Detective Jack Kempson (Colin Friels) who is the main character in the film captivated me, and something about the pace and the events in the film made me keep watching. And I’m happy that I did, because as the film progressed it got better and better, the situations became more and more engaging, and the action built up all of the way to the climax at the end of the film.
I particularly liked the uncomfortable situations when Jack Kempson has to deal with his boss who despises him for blowing the whistle on corrupt colleagues. This leads to his boss telling his daughter some uncomfortable truths about Kempson’s dead wife, and the anguish in these scenes meant a lot to me, the idea of problems that don’t have a solution, that you just have to live through.
As the film goes on, Kempson’s ability as a detective comes out above all else, even when he is working in a police department that is actively trying to ruin him. I think this is a central theme that we Brits love - think about Inspector Frost - his boss hates him, but he solves crimes, and that’s the important thing.
This is going to sound sad, but the only way I could guess at the age of the film was that Kempson’s grudging assistant Kate Beahan (Julie Egan) in the filing department has a big LCD flat screen on her computer, so I knew it wasn’t a very old film. If it hadn’t been for this I would have been wildly wrong in my guess, thinking it was made in the mid nineties. This difficulty in pinning down the age of the film isn’t a bad thing by the way, the cinematography had a lot of character, and this made the film more enjoyable and memorable. The film was directed by Peter Andrikidis.
I thought the ending to the film where one of the murderers who has remained undiscovered for thirty years and is finally trapped, was particularly deep - that idea of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, where the guilty person can’t live with the crime they have committed, it festers within them, and ruins their life.
Full cast list for BlackJack: Allan Vaughan, Anthony Simcoe, Chris Argirousis, Colin Friels, David Field, Doris Younane, Elizabeth Maywald, George Andrikidis, Gigi Edgley, Grant Galea, Inge Hornstra, Jason Clarke, John Brumpton, Julian Garner, Kate Beahan, Kosta Doukas, Louise Ginman, Mark Owen-Taylor, Matt Boesenberg, Melissa Jaffer, Ron Graham, Russell Dykstra, Sam Isaacs, Sarah Enright, Sari Sheehan, Steve Vella, Taylor Owyns, Tina Bursill, Tony Barry, Victoria Longley, Wahid Dona, Yiani Andrikidis.
8 Responses to “BlackJack 2003 Australian film”
September 4th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Great programme recorded it at three in the morning to watch at a later date, Sky+ stopped recording three minutes from the end when they were driving to the house where the boy was kept, don`t know what happened and its driving me nuts, how did it end.
terry
September 4th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Hi Terry - I sent you an email rather than publishing the end of the film here…
Thanks for your comment
September 26th, 2006 at 3:33 am
I really enjoyed this show but suffered the same sky+ problem as Terry, could someone let me know how it ended, many thanks Jim
September 26th, 2006 at 7:48 am
Hi Jim - this is what I emailed Terry - don’t read this if you don’t want to know how the film ends!!!
The end of BlackJack was brilliant. They drove that guy (one of the murderers) to a house that looked like a dolls house that was in someone’s garage earlier in the film, barged their way in and dragged the guy round the house trying to force him to tell them where they murdered the little boy. Eventually Jack Kempson discovers a huge hidden cellar under the house, and kicks a panel away inside the cellar revealing the dead boy’s skeleton. The guy they dragged into the house is distraught at this stage because he is reliving when they murdered the boy, a crime he thought he had got away with. The rest of the police arrive because the new occupants of the house are naturally unhappy about Kempson and all the others barging in. The head of police ends up still hating Kempson even though he has solved the crime, because of when he grassed up his colleagues.
It is over 3 weeks since I saw the film and I can still remember the details, so it obviously made a strong impact on me.
Another film I reviewed recently was Unbreakable and there is a very strong similarity in the way the whole plot of the film resolves in the final few moments, but the thing is, I found the way they did it in Unbreakable was very unsatisfactory, whereas the end of Blackjack was brilliant!
September 26th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
Many thanks Matt , i’ve got the rest of them recorded so i can watch them now, By the way i agree with you about Unbreakable an original story let down by what seemed a rushed ending. Regards Jim.
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:00 pm
My wife was also channel hopping mode when she landed on
BlackJack 2003. She keeps telling me it was a fantastic film -
I was sleeping peacefully - and we must get the DVD.
We have tried most of the usual outlets but have had no success. They had never heard of it.
Can you advise where we can obtain it ??? Thank You
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:14 pm
That’s a really good question. I would like to be proved wrong, but I don’t think it’s been released on DVD, it was a made-for-tv film.
January 11th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
I am 83 and agree with all the good things said about Blackjack. Colin Friels is tremendous- but he has always been a good actor in the best Aussie tradition
- and I do think the Australian Film Industry is first-class, and has been for many years.
I have a habit of watching ANY Aussia film that comes up on British TV , AND I AM RARELY DISAPPOINTED. NOT MANY DISAPPOINT ME