Binge-r #166: The Mandalorian + Blue Murder
Silent Knight: Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian) in The Mandalorian
THE MANDALORIAN S1
Streaming Service: Disney+
Availability: All eight episodes now streaming
Arriving mere weeks after the launch of Apple TV+, Disney+ completes the streaming wars line-up – it’s no longer a matter of which streaming service you want, but which ones you’d prefer. Staying strictly on brand at $8.99 a month, Disney+ is the personification of their family friendly entertainment (MA and R ratings do not exist here), based on the biggest franchises: Pixar, Marvel, and Star Wars. The latter also boasts their key launch commission, a lean and mostly entertaining space western that exists on the fringe of both George Lucas’ galaxy far, far away and the mystical ethos it has come to embody as a popular culture religion. As 2016’s spin-off movie Rogue One showed, Star Wars without the Skywalker family has some intriguing possibilities.
There have been Mandalorians in the various cinema trilogies: armoured-plated bounty hunters such as Boba and Jango Fett. The new Mandalorian, played beneath a mask he doesn’t removed in the first two episodes by Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones, Triple Frontier), is also a bounty hunter, laconic and then decisive in the manner of Clint Eastwood 1960s spaghetti western persona The Man with No Name. Set five years after Return of the Jedi crashed the ruling Empire, he brings in the wanted along a lawless frontier either dead or frozen in carbonate, one of many Star Wars references that underpin this galactic adventure. Created by filmmaker Jon Favreau (Iron Man, The Lion King), the series acknowledges Star Wars but thankfully doesn’t imitate it. There are some unexpected grace notes, and some bloody outcomes (RIP many Jawas).
The digital and practical effects are both exemplary, although the best special effect is the way legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog delivers his dialogue as The Client, a nefarious bidder who despatches The Mandalorian to bring in an off the books target. If you’ve avoided the internet spoiling what he finds, rest assured it’s a terrific twist at the end of the first episode, although I’m more concerned at how the second episode is heavy on the action but feels like it’s avoiding the nascent plot. The Mandalorian is stern but not without emotion (cue childhood flashbacks), and he says un-chill things like, “I’m a Mandalorian, weapons are part of my religion”. You’d suspect this is a redemption tale, but if you’re connected to Star Wars then this creature feature journey will give you what you want, right down to dusk scenes on a desert planet and alien-filled cantinas.
Last Drinks: Richard Roxburgh (Roger Rogerson) and Tony Martin (Neddy Smith) in Blue Murder
BLUE MURDER (SBS on Demand, both episodes now streaming): Originally screening on the ABC in 1995 – at least in states where it didn’t prejudice pending court cases – Blue Murder now features more than a few dated elements in its depiction of the mindboggling corruption that connected 1980s Sydney police officer to criminal figures: the score is clichéd, Peter Phelps’ performance needs reining in, and something strange rests atop Gary Sweet’s head. Yet the core of the miniseries, written by Ian David and directed by Michael Jenkins, remains a damning indictment of official malfeasance, setting up supposed criminal heavyweight Neddy Smith (Tony Martin) as the dutiful offsider of decorated police detective Roger Rogerson (a malignant Richard Roxburgh). Corruption is institutional in this world, not so much as open secret as an ongoing fact. Brawls at ANZAC Day two-up schools and boozy Chinese restaurant lunches to pay bribes provide a colloquial backdrop to police killings that were beyond brazen, and it’s hard not to wonder where the same instincts reside today. Kudos to SBS on Demand for making this available once more.
NEWLY ADDED MOVIES
New on Netflix: Side Effects (2013, 105 minutes) is a juicy little psychological thriller from Steven Soderbergh about a psychiatrist (Jude Law) treating a young woman (Rooney Mara) who claims medication made her turn on her husband (Channing Tatum); Kerry Washington gives a powerhouse performance in the stage adaptation of American Son (2019, 90 minutes) playing a mother fearfully awaiting news of her teenage son in a Florida police station.
New on SBS on Demand: A fierce British stage actor made into a movie star, Richard Burton had far too few screen roles that matched his talent, but Martin Ritt’s Cold War thriller The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1965, 112 minutes) is one of the notable exceptions, a chilling John le Carre adaptation about a double agent who comes to realise that he’s been betrayed by all.
New on Stan: A dry, daring comedy of manners with mordant Luis Bunuel echoes, Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier (2015, 101 minutes) follows a group of Greek men on an Aegean holiday whose competitiveness becomes a form of pathology; Good Night, and Good Luck (2005, 93 minutes) is easily the best film George Clooney has directed, a black and white period study of the media speaking truth to misplaced power that remains timely.
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