'After a shoot-out goes wrong, rule-bending Sydney undercover cop Tony Burke (Jerome Elders) is banished to the outback town of Yabbabri to tidy up a controversial investigation into the death in police custody of an aboriginal [sic] man. The boys at the local cop shop are confident there’s nothing to see. Local Indigenous community elders long ago stopped expecting them to do anything. Yet Bourke might be a rule-bender, but a not a rule-breaker; he senses a cover-up, and his loyalties shift from the force and fellow officers to the dead boy’s family. Esben Storm’s entry in the 1980s cycle of Australian neo-noir thrillers effectively borrowed elements of the crime writings of Arthur Upfield and Peter Corris, and from Australian cinema’s outback Gothic tradition, via smart illusions to Wake in Fright and especially via Frank Gallacher’s chilling performance as Sergeant Thornton. However it’s most timely point of reference was to the national community outrage swirling around the 1987-91 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.'
Source: NFSA Calendar (http://www.nfsa.gov.au/calendar/event/3786-deadly/). (Sighted: 11/10/2012)
