In 2016, Jack Irish expanded its scope through a series adaptation, starting with Blind Faith – a six hour serial changing formats from the previous three Jack Irish television movies. This episodic format allows Jack Irish more time to explore the pain and personal both at home and overseas.
Blind Faith opens with a violent massacre in the Philippines before Australian kidnappings and a mystery CEO hiring Jack to find his missing brother. Jack bemusingly has to explain the series’ happenstance, for he’s a former lawyer and sometime pony gambler but not a private detective. When the CEO mistakenly thinks Jack charges $350 an hour, Jack, however, will take a week’s pay upfront. Rap sheets and church outreach programs lead to ominous phone calls and gunpoint revelations as Jack realizes it’s stupid to tail thugs in a black SUV with his Studebaker Hawk. Manila newsrooms on the case fare no better thanks to primitive computers, a barely functioning internet, offbeat editors, false arrests, and unlikely alibis. Hidden cameras and an extra $25,000 in Jack’s bank account led to corporate fronts yet Blind Faith takes time for chuckles between the seriousness thanks to said stolen Hawk and Jack being reduced to driving a little purple car outside the giant spaceship-looking megachurch. Government inquests shush whistle blowers and escort witnesses, and the religious facade is so charismatic that one can almost believe it.
Incriminating phone records and notes slipped under the door begat sneaking into sex parties, but nonsensical text message names and numbers don’t help Jack find who has framed him. Awkward funerals leave him holding hands in the swaying prayer circle for “Level 2s and up” who don’t want Jack asking about the multiple deaths in their congregation. His private meeting with the pastor leads to a great commentary on the hypocritical church as a business with false sermons and ironic scripture quotes. Wealth and success are for true believers sans guilt, yet they quiz Jack on the powerlessness of losing his late wife. Off the books payments, unknown diaries, gated factories, and shell casing clues result in a menacing phone recording, raids at the hotel pool, and explosions as the so-called religious have doubts and familial regrets. Jack disturbingly sends text messages from the deceased’s phone in order to catch those responsible as the series comes full circle with weapons amid the stuffed animals bound for the Philippines, dogs in pursuit, and shootouts. Are our own little crusades over once the bads are arrested and there are enough horse race winnings to buy another Studebaker? Maybe.
As Irish, Guy Pearce looks worse for the wear, suffering once again and disliking coming home to his dark, empty apartment where he takes his problems out on his liver. He can’t keep up running after debtors and accepts a horse as payment. When Jack’s phone is stolen, he borrows a glittery pink smartphone but he’s confused by auto-correcting texts and takes a selfie instead of snapping the intended license plate. Jack’s never lived anywhere but Fitzroy and plays the fighting football song while the stripper dances, remembering his beloved athlete father as a less than stellar, abusive husband. Crooks know Jack – aka John English when he needs a fake name – isn’t in on the crime because he’s wearing a cardigan, but the bank cut up his cards and he admits he can’t handle this case. Jack mocks the church’s multi-millions compared to Jesus’ humble but declares himself a cynic that God abandoned a long time ago.
Jack goes head to head with the villain asking each other to be honest for their on camera confessionals. However, Jack say’s he a debt collector because he prefers the company of decent men – while our pastor thinks three deaths out of 30,000 parishioners is not a lot. The bruised and bandaged Jack can’t eat and won’t enter the bombed out crime scene yet he refuses a counselor, fights a club bouncer, and almost gets run over in the driveway. He tells off everyone as Blind Faith sends Jack on an angry roller coaster with nothing to lose. In a behind the scenes moment available on the Jack Irish DVD set, Pearce says the writers allow sadness, drama, and a moving story but not sentimental sappy, just emotion, justice, and grief. Jack leaves his house to the ghosts and horses he says are there and sleeps in the workshop or the hay. We’re on his side when he threatens the bad guys, but the armed Jack lets bad things happen before he recoils at seeing his father in himself.
Of course, Jack helps Linda Hillier (Marta Dusseldorp) pack for her Manila job opportunity. She says she’s over their not having kids but hates that he’s too attached to Fitzroy to come with her. They argue and flirt at the same time, romping against the door despite more cruel words about who’s leaving or won’t commit. Linda calls to hear Jack’s voice, glad the answering machine still says “Jack and Linda” but lying that Manila is great when she’s immediately overwhelmed. The fourth floor walk up with someone else already living there was not what she was promised, and Linda demands proper facilities without power outages and ceiling fans falling on her desk. She’s a proper journalist tracking terrorists, but Linda is hindered at every turn by dummy Manila bank transfers, threats, and creepy chat messages labeling her as a troublemaker. At the hotel pool, her bathing suit stands out among the covered women, and Linda sets off alone to interview her terrorist only to be ambushed, dropping her bravado and discovering her maternal side upon meeting a local orphan.
Jack’s disinterest let her put her career first, but now a tearful Linda admits to her editor Orton (Jacek Koman) that she is out of her depth. Orton is chill and unimpressed, asking Linda what she’s running away from in Melbourne but keeping his own history close to the vest while tracing shell companies buying up harbor land. Jack tells Linda to come home, but she asks to where if her name is now off the answering machine and he pushes her away when she does return. They realize their investigations are connected to something bigger, but they laugh that they don’t know what to do about it or their relationship. Determined to bring her scoop back to Manila; Linda is chased, bound with a bag over her head, and taken hostage. Orton says she got her story, maybe even a book out of it, but at what cost?
Truck driving, blowtorch using, sleeping in the garage scrap metal artist Sarah Longmore (Claudia Karvan) eats onion and mustard sandwiches. Karavan excels in one on one scenes exploring how Sarah’s terrible relationships inspire her sledge-hammered artwork. Blunt Sarah spots dalliances, mocks praise music, and cuts right to the punch when dealing with windblown theater agents. She wants to wear an ugly lime green dress to the cemetery and have sex with Jack in the boutique dressing room, but he wants her to admit her sadness. Despite our love for Linda, we like Sarah and Jack together, and Linda even goes Sarah’s exhibition.
It’s great to see the two face to face, for they might have really liked each other if not for Jack being between them. Sarah buys Jack a trilby for his first race as a horse owner, but instead of going to the track, she dines with cabinetmaker Charlie Taub – an occasion to which his apprentice Jack has never been invited. David Ritchie replaces the late Vadim Glowna as Jack’s woodworking mentor, providing wisdom and his used underwear for Jack to stain his little tables. Charlie Taub won’t discuss his foreclosure struggles, refusing to charge more for his high-end furniture so it remains affordable to everyone. Jack makes tea while Sarah becomes better at mortise joints than he is, and Jack’s jealous of Charlie’s “Not Bad” over her work, but he feigns ignorance after using his winnings to pay Charlie’s mortgage.
Cam Delray (Aaron Pederson) intervenes when Jack is chased and beaten, giving Jack a gun but later taking it back because Jack is an accident waiting to happen. Cam follows a mystery truck since they shouldn’t let the “Urinator” who beat Jack go before continuing their pursuit on foot while Harry Strang (Roy Billing) stays in the jaguar and makes racing calls with Deborah Mailman’s bookie Cynthia. Though impressed when Jack dons his hat like a respectable horse owner, Harry loans Jack money when his account is frozen and worries over Jack’s broken spirit. Harry hopes that a pet – like the horse in his courtyard – is just what Jack needs but eventually he insists Jack stay at his palatial estate where breakfast is at 6 a.m. and they dress for dinner at 5:30 sharp.
Of course, the out of place, grizzled Jack is always late, unshaven, and Harry doesn’t want blood on anything. Headlines and police snooping pollutes their racing down low, but fortunately, Cynthia comes through on race day when Harry won’t let the looking terrible Jack sit in the owner’s box. When lunching at the strip club, however, cop Barry Tregear (Shane Jacobson) complains about the food and tells the women to close their legs. Barry’s investigations are stonewalled since Jack has made numerous enemies in high places, and he’s even suspended for his association with Jack. Though angry over how much trouble Jack causes, he ends up smuggling Jack away from the crime scene in his trunk. Bob Franklin’s kidney removing crook Brendan O’Grady likewise helps “Jack f****** Irish!”– bringing him an anniversary gift, a loaded gun, pictures of them together, and get well balloons.
A thunderstorm ruins the beach wedding of Simone (Kate Atkinson) and a Simon Longbottom, but Jack needed her computer help anyway and gives her a Star Wars toy as a wedding gift. She loans him her little purple car with the smiley face key chain – which leads to several ill-advised car chases – and Simone takes to sharing Jack’s bottle before adorably ending up in Jack’s bed with Damien Richardson’s lawyer Drew Greer. Unfortunately, the Fitzroy Youth Club Eric (Terry Norris), Wilbur (John Flaus), and Norm (Ronald Falk) is upset when they leave the Prince of Prussia pub for a midday funeral that didn’t serve food. They haven’t switch bar stools in the forty years since Bill Irish died but are trying to commission his statue and keep Fitzroy Football memorabilia in the billiard room. They’re shocked at Sarah’s abstract metal creation and don’t know how to tell her, but Jack lets them stew.
Jack tells Damien Garvey’s bartender Stan that his angle is the pub where time stands still, but Stan changes the menu to compensate for money lost in a mail order bride scam, and Jack refuses to believe Stan’s new online girlfriend Cherry Blossom is real. New theme music accents the Melbourne and Manila locales for Blind Faith, and these full hour long episodes are done in two episode director blocks with Kieran Darcy-Smith (Wish You Were Here), Daniel Nettheim (Harrow), and Mark Joffe (A Place to Call Home) alongside Jack Irish writers Matt Cameron, Andrew Knight, and Andrew Anastasios. The episodic switch may seem slow to start and at times the heavy crimes and lighthearted characterizations are uneven. Inspired by the Peter Temple books but with no novel to go on, Blind Faith also refers to the TV movie cases and repeats similar intertwined crimes and consequences – expecting viewers to be familiar with the Jack Irish world.
Fortunately, it’s great to have more time with our quirky characters – even the secondary players and would be villains have complex personal moments. Unlike today’s orchestrated for streaming binge heights, Blind Faith‘s storytelling is character driven, yet this serial is also very easy to marathon. Once you start watching Jack Irish, it’s tough to stop.
still courtesy of Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
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Kristin Battestella writes articles, editorials, and reviews for several websites, magazines, and print publications including I Think, Therefore I Review and Search Magazine. Previously a traditionally published author of speculative fiction and the Fate and Fangs vampire novels, Kristin’s DIY Halloween how-tos and Kbatz Krafts articles have been featured at http://HorrorAddicts.net and in two Horror Addicts Guide to Life anthologies. In addition to sewing and @KbatzReviews Youtube vlogs; Kristin can be heard on the Women InSession podcast at http://InSessionFilm.com alongside her written classic film discourse. Kristin is also active in the local author community, having chaired writing events and conferences with the South Jersey Women Authors.
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