Parky at the Pictures (DVD 18/10/2018)

Having disrupted a camping holiday by running around with a tent on his head when England won the World Cup in July 1966, 11 year-old Dave Roberts (Brenock O'Connor) pleads with parents Donald (Alan Davies) and Gertie (Martine McCutcheon) to be allowed to watch Tottenham Hotspur or West Ham United. However, his limping father detests football and Dave is forced to settle for supporting his local team, Bromley, after his mother knitted him a scarf in the wrong colours and slipped it under the door of a bedroom whose walls are covered in football cuttings and whose floor is dominated by a Subbuteo pitch.

Pretending to be going on a cub scout outing (even though he was three years too old), Dave cycles off on his Chopper bike to watch Bromley prepare for the 1969-70 season with a friendly against West Ham. He watches in awe as star striker Alan Stonebridge (Ross Anderson) arrives at the shabby Hayes Lane ground moments before chairman and self-made millionaire Charlie McQueen (Jamie Foreman). However, he is disappointed when he doesn't recognise a single player on the West Ham bus and realises they have sent a team of hopefuls rather than World Cup winners Geoff Hurst, Bobby Moore and Martin Peters. Declining autographs, Dave looks on in horror as Bromley take a pasting and a mixture of newspaper headlines, reports written on a trusty Brother typewriter and Dave's off-screen narration (delivered rather bizarrely by Alan Davies) informs us that this pattern continued until Christmas.

In February 1970, however, Dave befriends three fellow sufferers in Roy Oliver (TJ Herbert), Derek Dobson (Ewen McIntosh) and Peter Batchelor (Mark Dymond) and they join forces to campaign for the removal of manager Dick Ellis (Gareth Hale). When Dave turns up at the ground with a heavy coat covering his `Dick Out' t-shirt, however, he finds himself sitting between Ellis and McQueen, who is accompanied by his Russian girlfriend, Anoushka (Anna Danshina), and teenage daughter, Ruby (Savannah Baker). Thus, he hears McQueen sacking Ellis before half-time and rushes off to tell his pals. Following an impromptu interview with goalkeeper Tony Soper (Danny Midwinter), Dave overhears Ellis warning McQueen against gambling the club away and has to take refuge in the chairman's office. 

Rootling through McQueen's desk, Dave finds some files on the squad and is puzzled by a note appended to Stonebridge's folder suggesting he is going to be transferred to Man U. Disturbed by Ruby looking for her dad, Dave introduces himself and tries to cheer her up when she becomes tearful in discussing relations between her parents. But Dave is keen to tell Peter, Roy and Derek his news and rushes off to hold a hastily convened fan club meeting in a parked car before a Sunday league match. His fellow addicts are stunned by (and a little bit sceptical about) the news of Stoney's imminent departure for Old Trafford. But their fears are confirmed when McQueen responds testily to a question about transfer plans during a press conference at the ground. 

Too busy fretting about his beloved team to realise that Ruby likes him, Dave manages to headbutt her while describing his hat-trick for Derek's team. But he receives a blow of his own when his parents decide to install him as a boarder at his school in Sevenoaks, as headmaster Mr Travis (Daniel Hill) is concerned that he is leading classmates astray by urging them to attend Bromley home games. Distraught at being confined to his dormitory on match days, Dave is forced to follow Bromley's fortune from a distance, as they score only three goals in losing 10 games in a row. 

With eight fixtures left, Dave takes the drastic step of sneaking out of school in his pyjamas to watch a night game. Peter remains dubious about the Man U transfer story and asks Dave to get some proof. He gets a job in the snack bar to get him into the inner sanctum and renews acquaintance with Ruby, who informs him that she wants to be a doctor and that her teachers at the local comprehensive have high hopes of her securing a university place. Dave finds himself going to the same school after Travis expels him for breaking curfew. But his plans to take her to the pictures go awry when he finds evidence that convinces him that Leeds have put in a counter offer for Stoney and that McQueen is going to discuss the deal with DR - who can only be Don Revie. 

Having managed to get himself locked in the changing room with Ruby, Derek and Peter (after Roy gets arrested while on lookout duty), Dave reconciles himself to the fact that Stoney's transfer might bring in enough money to save Bromley from bankruptcy. But the team needs a miracle to avoid coming bottom of the league, having amassed only 16 points from 35 games and having a goal difference of minus 86. Unfazed by the discovery that midfielder Herbie Lane (Adam Deacon) is his new geography teacher, Dave is crushed when McQueen bars him from the ground for spending the night in the dressing room with Ruby. However, he gets to see Anoushka present McQueen with Don Revie's phone number and accepts Ruby's invitation to a party at her house the following Saturday.

Beating the Hayes Lane ban by travelling to Wycombe, Dave is delighted to get a lift back to Kent from Stonebridge. He mentions that McQueen is considering selling him to Carshalton and Dave assures him that he's much too good for them. Thrilled to be presented with a pair of his hero's boots, Dave gets home and dresses in his tightest pants for the party. He kisses Ruby while they dance. But, when McQueen makes a speech about her future, Dave realises that the notes he had found in his desk related to the universities in Manchester and Leeds not their respective Uniteds. Thus, he has to break the news that the TV rumours surrounding Stoney's big-money move are all based on a misunderstanding and that Bromley's future is anything but secured. 

Sitting on the floodlit pitch, Dave muses on the mess he's caused. But Stoney comes to join him and promises him that things will work out. This gives Dave an idea and he rushes back to McQueen's house to urge him to pawn his car and place a bet on Bromley winning their last game against table toppers Enfield. He also asks him to let him give the team talk, as no one knows the club better than he does and McQueen reluctantly agrees (although Ruby wants nothing more to do with Dave for ruining her life). 

Ignoring Donald's orders to stay away from the ground (and the ill omen of treading on a Subbuteo centre forward), Dave cycles to the ground in a sheepskin coat alongside McQueen, who is bearing up after Anoushka walked out on him. However, the players are in no mood to listen to a kid who can't get his tactics straight and Dave is so dismayed at messing up his big chance that he hurls his father's briefcase (which he had brought with him to make him look important) against the wall. It bursts open and cuttings detailing Donald's glittering schoolboy career spill out. Dave discovers that his dad's dislike of the game stems from a leg break that ended his career and he is sobbing in the showers when the team comes in for half time. Stoney feels sorry for him and tells the others to listen, as Dave delivers a speech from the heart about turning things round in the last 45 minutes so that he has somewhere to spend his Saturdays next season. 

Amazingly, they turn around a 0-1 deficit to win with a last minute Stonebridge free kick and there are wild celebrations on the pitch. Ruby forgives Dave everything and his parents show up in time to see their son being hoisted on to the shoulders of the Bromley players. As the scene fades, Dave reaffirms Bill Shankley's maxim that football is the most important thing in life before a series of captions introduce us to the handful of real people behind the principals. 

Anyone who has ever commentated while playing solo Subbuteo will recognise a kindred spirit in Dave Roberts. As will those who have turned out in all weathers to support their team, as it languishes in the lower reaches of the league without the first idea of where the next win is going to come from. But, while this affectionate adaptation of Roberts's autobiographical tome makes for irresistible footballing nostalgia, it's not always as effective in terms of its storytelling. 

For example, production designer Kay Brown should be lauded for such lovely details as the inclusion of some square-based Table Association Football 4-2-4 players alongside their Subbuteo counterparts and the Isthmian League that Dave had appended to the league ladders that had been given away as a free gift with the first issue of Shoot in August 1969. But authenticity isn't such a priority for screenwriter Warren Dudley, as no one called Don Roberts has ever played for England at youth level. Moreover, he has Bromley win their final game against the now defunct Enfield to avoid being relegated when they actually finished bottom of the table with 10 points, having lost all but seven of their 38 matches (winning only three) and conceded 111 goals while scoring a mere 28. They did remain in the division. But, seemingly it wouldn't have made for such cinematic spectacle unless the underdogs had shown their mettle when it mattered most. 

Notwithstanding the need to massage the facts to heighten the drama, Dudley also has the 15 year-old Dave in the same class as Ruby at Langley Park, when she is supposedly applying to university (which is something she wouldn't normally have been doing for another two years). Such slips matter not a jot in the grand scheme. But resound with the thud of a brown leather football and undermine an otherwise enjoyable romp that is winningly scored with a smattering of period hits and played with plenty of gusto by a lively ensemble. Alan Davies may not be on peak form, but Martine McCutcheon is typically affable as the gold-hearted mum conspiring to help son indulge his passion. Moreover, Brenock O'Connor is suitably nerdy in his Buddy Holly specs and ill-fitting threads, while Savannah Baker makes a charming foil, as her twee bookworm keeps trying to follow footie-related conversations that mean absolutely nothing to her.

Ever since drunk driver Robert Montgomery was banged away for manslaughter in George Hill's The Big House (1930), numerous prison pictures have centred on the experiences of `innocents' in the university of life. Now, containing echoes of Alan Clarke's Scum (1979), Jacques Audiard's A Prophet (2009) and Craig Viveiros's Ghosted (2011), Frank Berry's Michael Inside follows a gullible 18 year-old into the cells in order to compare his experiences behind bars and those on his rundown Dublin housing estate. Researched and workshopped in conjunction with the Pathways rehabilitation service, this carefully made drama shares a setting with Berry's documentary, Ballymun Lullaby (2011), and a lead with his excellent dramatic debut, I Used to Live Here (2014), for which Berry had plucked Dafhyd Flynn off the streets to play the bullied kid who tries to console 13 year-old Jordanne Jones, as she contemplates suicide following the death of her own mother and a popular local boy.

With his mother dead from an overdose and his father Christy (Shane Lynch) in jail, Michael McCrea (Dafhyd Flynn) lives with his grandfather, Francis (Lalor Roddy), on an estate on the rougher outskirts of Dublin. When not at school, Michael smooches with his girlfriend, Orla Kerr (Hazel Doupe), and hangs out with a bunch of likely lads who do a little dealing on the side. Unfortunately, while he's holding a stash for one of his pals (Leroy Harris), Michael gets busted and Francis fears that he will go to prison because he refuses to name names. 

Upset at being dumped by Orla, whose father is furious that she is associating with such a lowlife when she's only 16, Michael pleads guilty on the advice of solicitor Larry Walsh (Sam McGovern) in the hope of getting a non-custodial sentence. Francis wants to mention that Michael was bullied by a teacher at school, but he refuses to court sympathy. However, he is scared by the prospect of going inside and Francis suggests he visits his father for some advice. He ticks him off for being so foolish, but urges him to keep his head down and keep out of trouble. Anything but reassured, Michael feels sick in the night. But Francis tells him to go back to bed because he's not a kid any longer.

This is patently untrue, however, and he puts on a brave face as he hugs his grandfather before they leave for court. Despite Michael losing his mother to drugs, Justice Conroy (Ally Ni Chiarain) takes into account the fact he is on probation for having been a passenger in a stolen car and she decides to give him a short, sharp shock with a three-month sentence. A tear rolls down Michael's cheek as he hears the verdict and Francis grimaces at having let the boy down, as he rides the bus to his empty home. 

Taken down, Michael is kept in a blue-lit holding cell, where various old lags tease him with a degree of protective affection before he is led away in double handcuffs. Arriving at the prison, Michael is made to strip and shower after being frisked and photographed. He is given his uniform and placed in a holding cell overnight before being moved to his new wing after visiting Governor Lally (Steve Blount), who asks if he feels threatened by any of the drug gang he let down. Unaware of the fact that Francis has been ordered to pay €2000 compensation for the lost cocaine by Dermot Horgan (Robbie Walsh), Michael answers in the negative. But he manages to fall foul of the abrasive Sean Quinn (Terry O'Neill) during his first visit to the exercise yard by providing a vague response on being asked where he lives. 

As Francis clears out his savings and borrows money from pal Des Moran (Gerry Grimes), Michael gets beaten in his cell and both his cellmate Ray Flood (Ryan Lincoln) and Francis tell him to toughen up and take a stand when he lets his fear show. He is given his chance when David Furlong (Moe Dunford) approaches him on a corridor and tells him that Quinn is alone in his cell and he keeps watch while Michael pulps him. While he gets no more trouble, however, Furlong reckons he's owed a favour in return and asks Michael to hold on to a phone for him. Meanwhile, Francis puts chains on his front door, but Hogan seems happy with his payment and promises to leave him alone. 

Furlong forces Michael to accompany him when he exacts a punishment on Stephen Murphy (Tony Doyle) by pouring acid on his face. When Michael asks if they're quits, Furlong threatens to grind his face in the concrete. He also informs him that his misery is only about to begin, as he'll be prevented from buying a house or travelling to America because of his conviction. Yet, when Sam (Gary Egan), comes to give a talk about how he turned his life around by beating heroin and doing an Open University course, Michael listens intently, as teacher Emma Kelly (Rebecca Guinnane) has promised to help him apply for a social care course when he gets out. 

When Furlong orders him to scalpel the face of another prisoner, Michael has to steel himself and is almost overpowered when he makes his attack. Furlong glares at him for having to intervene and Michael is certain that he is about to be disciplined when he's summoned to the governor's office by warder Doyle (Elaine Kennedy). In fact, he is informed that he will be released the next day. But Ray has found the drugs Furlong had asked him to hold and he orders him to return them and the phone to keep temptation and trouble at arm's length. Fearing a backlash, Michael is surprised when Furlong takes the items and wishes him well on the outside with a clasp around the neck.

Francis is waiting at the gate when Michael is released and he provides him with a character reference when he applies for the social care course. However, Michael senses that the interviewers are unimpressed, even when he states that he wishes to use his experience to keep others on the straight and narrow. Moreover, he gets home to find Hogan coercing Francis to smuggle drugs into the prison the next time he visits his son. He tells Hogan to sling his hook, but he threatens to kill Christy unless Francis complies. 

So, Michael downs a six-pack of Irish courage and assaults Hogan with a metal bar and receives three years for his trouble after he is spotted by a young boy at the window of a nearby house. As Francis puts new bolts on the front door and opens a letter awarding Michael a place on the course, his grandson finds himself in a cell with a heroin addict and the future looks grim as the camera follows him in tight close-up along the caged corridor.

One of the recurring problems facing prison pictures is that endings involving redemption or damnation feel equally contrived. Given that he has only been inside for a few weeks and has had a relatively easy ride, it seems unlikely that Michael's skin would have thickened sufficiently for him to cosh a villain renowned for getting even with those who cross him. However, it would have felt speciously cosy if he had simply walked free, secured his college place and made his grandfather proud. Perhaps a fade on Michael debating whether to attack Hogan or knuckle under would have been more suspenseful. But, having listened to several Pathway veterans, Berry's is fully entitled to follow his dramatic instincts, especially as he wisely avoids any cheap shots at the prison system or any Loachian preachiness in his depiction of the hardships on the estate.

Despite not always convincing since making his feature bow with The Late Twentieth (2002), British director Hadi Hajaig has proved himself to be a dab hand at neo-noir thrillers with Puritan (2005) and Cleanskin (2012). However, he comes unstuck in attempting to pay tongue-in-cheek homage to the barrage of wisecracking crime indies that deluged release schedules in the wake of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie's first movies. Winkingly self-reflexive from the get-go, Blue Iguana might have eponymous echoes with John Lafia's The Blue Iguana (1988) and Michael Radford's Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000), but this coarse caper is no more distinguished than its titular predecessors.

Flying to New York on the recommendation of cousin Tommy Tresham (Al Weaver), lawyer Katherine Rookwood (Phoebe Fox) tracks down petty crooks Eddie (Sam Rockwell) and Paul Driggs (Ben Schwartz) to the crummy diner where they are working for buttons. She offers them $30,000 to go to London and intercept a package with Tommy at the Natural History Museum. Eddie is sceptical, but agrees after witnessing the confident manner in which Katherine blackmails their boss (Glenn Wrage) into squaring things with their parole officer. 

Naturally, everything goes wrong when the trio attempt to steal a blue haversack containing the parcel during a reception in Hintze Hall,as a Mexican standoff turns into a punch-up and a complete stranger plummets to his death after trying to run off with the bag. News of the botched ambush reaches Deacon Bradshaw (Peter Ferdinando), a Northern-accented daddy's boy who runs a spit-and-sawdust boozer with his man-eating Bow Bells mother, Dawn (Amanda Donohoe). She mocks his prized mullet in front of his Mockney henchmen and, in order to show off how tough he is, he decides to front the raid on the bag snatchers when they meet Katherine to collect their pay.

Once again, things don't go according to plan, as Deacon loses a button of his beloved father's denim jacket while teaching some manners to a smarmy café owner (Anton Saunders). Moreover, he loses his temper and shoots him through the head for making an unfortunate remark about his barnet. Meanwhile, Deacon's oppos (who are cunningly disguised as waiters) get beaten up by Eddie and Paul when they try to grab the bag and the brown envelope of cash that Katherine has brought with her. The New Yorkers are furious at being deducted $10,000 each because of the fatality at the museum. But their debate is disrupted when Deacon's duo come round and require further pulping to render them properly unconscious, which gives Katherine the opportunity to abscond with both the bag (which is full of bonds) and the loot. 

She presents them to Arkady (Peter Polycarpou), a Russian mobster who just happens to be Deacon's boss. When he sidles into the meeting room, Katherine notices the missing button (which she had spotted on the café floor) and realises that he's up to no good. However, as she refuses to tell Arkady where Eddie and Paul are holed up, he reinstates the debt she owes him and warns Deacon that he will be in serious trouble if he discovers that he knew anything about the attempt to steal the bonds. 

While stuffing her face in the foyer, Katherine sees Arkady meet up with a trio of infamous villains and she scurries over to tell Paul and Eddie that she suspects he is planning to use the bonds to fund a major operation. When Eddie refuses to co-operate because they've not been paid for the museum mission, Katherine threatens to give evidence against them and they have no option but to go along with her plan. Consequently, they move into an art studio opposite to Prince of Wales to keep tabs on Deacon, who has just bumped off his goons before they can betray him to Arkady. 

Tommy and his Cornelius Schlessvig Von Holstein (Robin Hellier) take turns in monitoring activity, while Paul develops a crush on Dawn after watching her putting on stockings through her bedroom window. Despite himself, Eddie has also grown fond of Katherine and learns from Tommy that she became indebted to Arkady when a feckless boyfriend used her as a front to embezzle some money before running off with her best friend. However, when Eddie tries to impress her with a Cockney accent, she is dubious at best and squirms away when he attempts to get up close and personal. 

Paul has more luck flirting with Dawn when he pops into the pub, but he has to duck down when Deacon returns with his new entourage. In order to snoop on them, Katherine and Tommy enlist the help of their posh Uncle Martin (Simon Callow) and his friends, Fosdyke (Martin Muncaster), Gilbert (Nigel Nevinson) and Quentin (Christopher Terry). They report the overheard banter in cut-glass accents and let slip that there was much discussion of a blue iguana, which Katherine knows is a priceless diamond that was presented to Princess (Frances Barber) by her rich husband. However, she lost it in a card game and has seemingly hired Arkady to steal it back so that she can wear it at a big family gathering. 

Despite enjoying flirting with Katherine, Eddie is keen to return Stateside and asks if there's a way in which they could force Arkady into stealing the stone before Princess arrives in a month's time. Katherine knows he has just increased the fire insurance on one of his buildings and suggests that they could put the police on his tail if they indulged in a little arson. However, she rushes off to keep a dinner date with her ex, in the hope he might want her back. Instead, he reduces her to tears and she looks on admiringly as Eddie (who has followed her to the restaurant) pulps the chap off screen. 

As a reward, Katherine lets her hair down and slaps on some make-up when she joins the gang in the backseat of their motor to press the detonator and drop Arkady in the mire. In her lawyer guise, she warns him that the cops will investigate and that he could find himself behind bars and he is furious that it's as easy to bribe his way out of little difficulties as it is back home. But, when he charges out of their meeting and Eddie follows him, he goes to an exercise class and it's only when Katherine looks at the footage that Eddie recorded on his phone that she spots the blue holdall being picked up by a guard from the storage facility where the Blue Iguana is being kept. 

Guessing that Arkady has gone out of town to be out of the picture when Deacon steals the diamond, Katherine sends Eddie, Tommy and Cornelius into a slow-motion shootout at the Prince of Wales that results in Tommy leaving with the Blue Iguana and a wounded Deacon taking Eddie hostage. Katherine calls to offer a trade and Deacon agrees to meet her in a café. Unfortunately, she has also called Arkady and told him that Deacon intends handing the diamond to the Princess in person for a sizeable reward. Thus, she is able to leave him in the Russian' safe hands, while she returns to the studio. 

The second part of her plan, however, involves Paul going into the pub and killing the guards watching Eddie (who is bound to the pool table) with the gun he had left hidden in the bathroom before sleeping with Dawn. Despite finding the weapon, Paul bungles the rescue attempt and it lucky that the dropped gun lands near enough for Eddie him to plug the uglies. That said, one of them proves only to be wounded and the timid Paul (who is covered with the splattered brains of the other oppo) has to kill somebody after all. 

As the good guys reunite at the studio, Tommy notices Arkady and his heavies entering the pub with Deacon. Convinced he has hidden the Blue Iguana, the Russian slices off one of Deacon's fingers with a blade. However, as he writhes on the floor, Deacon finds a dropped gun and not only shoots Arkady and his crew with unerring accuracy, but also taunts them with a chorus of `nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah'. 

Having broken Dawn's neck when she nags him once too often for getting lost in the car park of the hotel where Princess is staying, Deacon ambushes the quintet as they are about to leave with a bagful of dosh. He ushers them into a bathroom and describes in gruesome detail how he is going to kill each one of them. But Eddie has put a small explosive device in the bag and he splatters Deacon to smithereens and they manage leave the hotel in slo-mo with a police escort and without attracting any attention because a film crew just happens to be shooting a zombie movie on the premises. No, seriously. 

Back at the studio, Tommy (who turns out to be gay) bids farewell to Eddie with a lengthy kiss on the mouth, while Paul and Cornelius leave with their share of the £1 million payoff to make a film (because Cornelius is a frustrated actor and Paul fancies becoming a director). This leaves Eddie to remove Katherine's glasses and push back her long, dark hair. But, rather than focus on their embrace, the camera glides into the next room to close on the last spread of the chivalric superhero graphic novel that Eddie has been reading throughout the picture. 

It's a neat final set-up in a picture that can never be accused of lacking ambition and brio. But, despite the commitment of Sam Rockwell, Ben Schwartz and Phoebe Fox, this caper consistently strains for comic effect and, as a result, it winds up being resoundingly unfunny. Indeed, the only laughs come from Amanda Donohoe's blowsy derision at Peter Ferdinando's hairdo and his infantile ridiculing of the dead Arkady with a playground chant. Simon Callow also has fun as the ex-military toff who gets a kick out of helping out his nephew and niece. But the majority of the cast are saddled with clunking caricatures, which they play with varying degrees of skill. 

As writer, director, producer and co-editor, Hajaig throws everything at the screen in the hope enough sticks to produce the odd guffaw. But the cartoonish violence is vulgar and the dialogue (whether scripted or improvised) is often shudderingly awful. Moreover, the mannered stylistic tics are tiresomely recycled rather than kitschily ironic and one is left pining for the very post-Reservoir Dogs copycats that Hajaig is seeking to pastiche, such as Richard Shepherd's The Linguini Incident (1992) and Tom Schulman's 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997). Oh, and before anyone asks what Sam Rockwell is doing starring in and co-producing this faux indie after winning an Oscar for Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, this misjudged and frequently distasteful misfire has been on the shelf for two years.

The focus falls on unconventional police work in Ivan Sen's Mystery Road, a slow-burning thriller that casts a noirish pall on a Bush Western that is not afraid to address the racial issues that fester below the unruffled surface of Australian society. Acting as his own writer, cinematographer, editor and composer, Sen reinforces the reputation established with Beneath Clouds (2002) and Toomelah (2011), which also explored the contemporary experience of the Aboriginal peoples. But this also slots neatly into the crime wave that has been reviving Aussie cinema, thanks to such strong titles as Nash Edgerton's The Square (2008) and Felony (2014), Justin Kurzel's Snowtown (2011), David Michod's Animal Kingdom (2010), Kieran Darcy-Smith's Wish You Were Here (2012) and Tony Ayres's Cut Snake (2014). 

When trucker Hayden Spencer finds the rotting corpse of an Aboriginal woman in a culvert outside the remote Queensland settlement of Massacre Creek, police sergeant Tony Barry assigns the case to detective Aaron Pedersen, as it concerns his people. He has been away in the `Big Smoke' for a while and has clearly alienated his erstwhile colleagues by getting ideas above his station. However, coroner Bruce Spence remains civil, as he deduces that the body has been moved while showing Pedersen the dingo bites on the torso, as well as the fatal knife wound. He also finds a wild grass seed in the girl's ear and wishes Pedersen luck in solving the case alone, as bigoted deputy Robert Mammone claims he's too busy to help. 

Driving into the nearby township, Pedersen breaks the news to the victim's family and learns from old boy Jack Charles that she had been prostituting herself to truck drivers to pay for her drug habit. The following day, Pedersen realises he is being observed from a distance as he revisits the crime scene and he calls on cattle rancher David Field to ask what he knows about the roadside trade. Asking sneeringly if Pedersen is a proper cop or a black traitor, Field complains about dingoes killing calves and looks on impassively as son Ryan Kwanten goes out kangaroo hunting with a pack of dogs. 

Back at the station, Barry tells Pedersen that he doesn't have the manpower or the resources to devote to the case and goes into a conspiratorial meeting in his office with drug cop Hugo Weaving. Accustomed to being marginalised, Pedersen quizzes gun shop owner Daniel Roberts about the sale of hunting knives, only to learn that he doesn't keep records for cash sales. However, as Pedersen searches for the dead girl's friend, Jarrah Louise Bundle, a young boy on a bicycle offers to give him the mobile that he found lying on the ground in return for a reward and hold of Pedersen's gun. 

Dismayed to find daughter Tricia Whitton's number on the phone, Pedersen pays her a visit and exchanges cool pleasantries with ex-wife Tasma Walton, who bears the bruises of another run-in with her new partner. Pedersen offers to find Whitton a job away from her drunken mother, but she feels he has neglected her and wants nothing to do with his concern or charity. Unable to sleep that night, Pedersen goes through the photographs on the phone and finds a picture of Whitton posing beside a truck on the highway. He drives out there in the dark and sees two figures carrying cases from a truck. Dimming his lights, Pedersen follows one of the vehicles back to Field's ranch. But, as he heads home, he is pulled over by Weaving, who insinuates that he would not be best pleased if the hard hours he has put in on a major case were wasted by someone prying where they weren't wanted. 

Remaining unmoved as Weaving asks if he would kill somebody if he knew he could get away with it, Pedersen seeks out Barry at his sprawling property. As the son of a stockman, Pedersen recognises the quality of the horse in the enclosure and is intrigued to learn that Weaving was transferred from the north after getting into a scrape. They go to the pub and Barry urges Pedersen not to rattle too many cages. He bumps into Walton playing the slots and asks why she is letting Whitton hang out with undesirables. She dismisses his holier than thou attitude by reminding him that he used to have a serious drinking problem and mocks him for trying to make a difference to people who don't want his help.

While having some target practice with his father's old Winchester rifle, Pedersen finds a poisoned dingo and returns to base to check the files on wild dog attacks. He unearths a report about loner Jack Thompson's claim to have seen a canine with a human bone in its mouth and drives out to see him. However, the old man's memory is fading and he can only recall his beloved pet Chihuahuas being savaged by mongrels. Yet, while lamenting that time passes so quickly and that not even dreams can bring back what has been lost, he cautions Pedersen to check the missing person files. 

Having rummaged through the archives, Pedersen returns to the township to make inquiries about another missing teenager. Charles confides that a lot of families are moving away because of the drink and drunk problems and points Pedersen towards Angela Swan and her mother Lillian Crombie. Swan reveals that the lost girl used to procure drugs from a white dealer at the Dusk Till Dawn hotel, but she claims to know nothing about Whitton's involvement with the local bad girls. Receptionist Zoe Carides flirts with Pedersen, but she recalls one regular who drove a white utility hunting truck and this prompts him to question Kwanten, who owns a similar vehicle. Scarcely concealing his prejudice, he informs Pedersen that he knows nothing about truckers or tricks and not only warns him that he will need a warrant, but also reminds him that he has a right to defend his land if anyone tries to trespass.

Spence calls Pedersen to say that he has found fibres from a car seat under the first victim's fingernails and suggests she was in agony when she died. He also concedes that he has been unable to match the saliva sample from the dog bites with any known species. But Pedersen is more interested in finding out about a colleague who was killed on duty a few years earlier. Widow Samara Weaving recalls him being very secretive about the case he was working on, but she is convinced that the police were somehow involved in his murder and that the truth has been covered up. 

Pedersen also suspects that something is going on at headquarters and he spies on Hugo Weaving as he rendezvous with Damian Walshe-Howling, who turns out to be a small-time thug with a lengthy record. He scarpers when Pedersen knocks on his door and claims he had mistaken him for someone else when he plays the innocent under interrogation. However, he sneers when Pedersen mentions the dead girls and declares that they got what they deserved because they were only interested in having a good time. He hints that Whitton is no angel and Pedersen is about to grab him by the throat when Weaving bursts in and demands to know why he is hassling his best informer. 

Stung by Walshe-Howling's accusation that he has betrayed his race, Pedersen scours the town rubbish tip. He is looking for a white Mercedes, but stumbles upon the body of the missing teen and Barry wonders if it's really worth starting a turf feud over a couple of black kids. Pedersen avers that they already live in a war zone, as he leaves to find Whitton. However, she has disappeared and Walton is upset because her house has been vandalised. Driving to Field's ranch, Pedersen is surprised to see someone in a hazmat suit open the barn doors for a speeding brown car, which he proceeds to pursue. Using the telescopic sight on his rifle, Pedersen watches as Walshe-Howling is taken out of the vehicle and bundled into a waiting car. 

As he follows, Pedersen is flagged down by Weaving, who suggests they go for a bite to eat. He asks Pedersen if he really believes in his messianic mission, but throws up at the mention of the fallen cop. Weaving warns Pedersen that he is taking reckless risks and suggests that he concentrates on keeping his own daughter on the straight and narrow rather than stomping his boots in places they don't belong. But Pedersen senses he is on to something big and returns to the township. He finds a sizeable stash in the back of the television in a smashed-up house and looks through the door to see innocent kids playing with a piñata and knows it is up to him to ensure they have a worthwhile future. 

Calling Weaving, he arranges to hand over the drugs at Slaughter Hill off Mystery Road. Loading up a pistol and the Winchester, Pedersen watches as the brown car drives up and a man in a hockey mask gets out and sits on the bonnet. Weaving also shows up and Pedersen gets out of his vehicle to hand the drugs to the masked stranger. But, as he nods and turns, Pedersen spots a hunting truck on the brow of a neighbouring peak and rushes for cover as gunshots ring out. Realising his assailant is Kwanten, Pedersen fires back, as Weaving shoots the man in the mask. Pedersen takes out the driver of the brown car as he tries to make a getaway. Kwanten aims at Weaving, as Pedersen grabs the Winchester and fires at the retreating utility truck. It grinds to a halt and Kwanten jumps out narrowly to miss Pedersen as he hides behind a tree. However, with his last bullet, Pedersen kills Kwanten and looks through his rangefinder to see Weaving slumped in his hiding place. 

Pulling off the hockey mask, Pedersen is hardly surprised to find Mammone. He peers into the brown car and sees Field pinned to a seat whose upholstery bears scratch marks. Reaching in, he finds a necklace belonging to the first victim. As he drives away, he hears wild dogs howling in the distance. He tours the township at dusk and stops to pick up Walton and Whitton, as they wait beside the highway. 

There will be those who will be frustrated by both the deliberate pacing of this simmering procedural and the ambiguities strewn across its the ending. But any noir worth its salt should leave the audience perplexed and Sen certainly likes to keep the cards close to his chest as he litters the action with hard facts, half-clues and red herrings. There is even room for a MacGuffin. His photography is every bit as meticulous as his direction and he makes wonderful use throughout the picture of aerial shots showing Pedersen's car traversing the dusty red landscape and the township's winding streets. He also combines well with production designer Matthew Putland and sound supervisor Lawrence Horne to capture the sights and sounds of this tension-racked outpost. 

The all-star cast is superb, with Pedersen excelling as the hard-boiled cop in a white Stetson, who is despised by rival cultures in spite of his struggle to recover the decency and dignity he lost during his wild days. Weaving overdoes some of his speech mannerism, but he also conveys the difficulty of doing the right thing in a backwater where the law is merely an option. But what most impresses here is the trust that Sen places in old-fashioned, foot-slogging detection, as Pedersen plods around a hometown he no longer recognises and is determined to deliver from its corroding moral malaise.