Blu-ray Review: ‘Jack Irish’

Not very long ago it was quite rare to see a movie actor appearing in television shows. In the early days of television part of the reason was geography as most shows were shot in New York City, where the networks were based, while movies were of course shot in Los Angeles. However, the real reason was most movie actors would have considered it beneath them to do television. Now of course all of that has changed. With the proliferation of cable channels that specialize in miniseries offering actors challenging roles, and the promise of continuing work, we’ve seen more and more crossover between the media. In fact there is no longer really any distinction between movie and television actors. You’re just as likely to see someone showing up on the small screen as on the big screen.

Although not as well known as some of his compatriots, Australian actor Guy Pearce has become a fixture in American movies over the last decade. However, he recently returned home to play the role of Jack Irish, successful barrister turned private detective, for Australian television. While filmed and originally aired in Australia, the show is now available to North American audiences through the release of the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack Jack Irish by Acorn Media.

Over the course of two feature length episodes, we follow the lead character as he looks into the mysterious deaths of first a former client and then the son of a friend of his late father. While the two cases aren’t related to each other, the two shows are chronological. For unlike other television detectives Irish has a life outside his investigations. While his detective work is obviously what propels the action, the rest of his life is just as important to the story and as interesting to watch as his work. Not only do the lines between the two occasionally blur as one bleeds over into the other, his personal story is the reason he’s where he is today.

When the first episode opens, Bad Debts, Irish is a still a successful barrister with a thriving career as a defence lawyer and has a beautiful wife. It all collapses when his wife is killed by a client who feels Irish didn’t do his job properly. Needless to say, his world comes crashing down upon him. We learn he tried to continue on as a defence lawyer after his wife’s murder but he wasn’t the man he once was. In an effort to deal with his pain he turned to alcohol. While it might have numbed his senses, it also reduced his faculties.

When we meet him again, a few years later, gone is the smart suit and carefully coiffed appearance. Instead we see a unshaven, poorly dressed guy acting as a debt collector. While he does give out receipts to those he collects from, it does seem like he’s now operating in slightly less of a legal capacity then he once did. The fact he’s also working for a rather shady individual helping to drive up the odds on horses during races in order to increase their winningsonly strengthens the impression he’s drifted quite a bit from his former life. However, this doesn’t mean he’s not without a conscience or lacking in the compassion that made him a defence lawyer in the first place.

For when a ex client, whose defence he mishandled badly due to drinking, is found murdered after leaving Irish a number of frantic voice mails, he decides to look into the circumstances surrounding his death. The police claim the man had pulled a gun on a couple of officers and they shot him in self defence. However, the guy had been expecting Irish to show up to meet him at the location where he was found dead and the circumstances don’t add up. Driven by feelings of guilt for maybe failing the man twice – Irish’s botched work as his defence attorney had resulted in the man going to jail for ten years on a charge of vehicular manslaughter – he begins to look into the man’s life to see what he can find out.

With the help of an investigative reporter, who soon also becomes his lover, he begins to peel back the layers of mystery surrounding the man’s death. The trail leads him and his woman partner back ten years to the crime the man was originally charged with and into the heart of what turns out to be a political scandal. As the body count mounts among those who could potentially give evidence in the case, Irish finds himself not only on the receiving end of death threats but finally on the run from crooked cops and corrupt politicians.

Both this episode and the second one, Black Tide, are as good as any of the crime dramas I’ve seen produced on either British or North American television, and far better than most. While the hard drinking private investigator with a tragic past is close to being a cliche, there’s far more to Irish than what appears on the surface. When the series opens he still appears to be only going through the motions of living. The wounds caused by his wife’s murder have hardened into scar tissue which he wears like armour against emotions and having to care too much. Looking into the murder of his former client begins the process of breaking down the barriers he’s erected between himself and most of the world while his new relationship continues the process. We actually see a softness appear on Irish’s face which wasn’t there at the beginning of the show the more he opens up to the new woman in his life.

Even in the second episode, when his partner has moved to another city to take a job with television and is rumoured to be having an affair with an on air personality, he doesn’t retreat back into his shell. It’s like he’s remembered what’s it’s like to be alive again, and even the jealousy and hurt he feels over the problems with his relationship aren’t enough to push him back into his life as a zombie. While it’s the script which lays all this out for us, without an actor of the quality of Pearce in the title role it might not have been as effective. He does a wonderful job of showing his character’s gradual progression as he deals with two very dangerous criminal investigations and ghosts from his past.

In the first episode it’s his wife’s murder he has to come to terms with, but in the second he has to reach back even further and deal with his memories of his father, a famous athlete, who died when Irish was a child. Pearce has always brought a certain amount of intensity to his roles, but here he allows himself to relax into his character. While the intensity comes through when required, he allows his character moments of repose where what’s happening affects him instead of it the other way around. While I’ve always appreciated Pearce’s work in the past, his performance as Jack Irish is probably the most complete characterization I’ve ever seen from him.

Perhaps it’s because, as he says in the special feature about the show included on both the Blu-ray and DVD, the show is being shot in his native Australia and he doesn’t have to worry about his accent and is generally more relaxed. You can see in the behind the scenes shots how in spite of the hard work being put in by everybody involved, there’s quite a relaxed attitude on set. This same feature also gives you an idea of both the technical knowhow and the talent of the people working in Australian television today, This is the third feature length production I’ve seen produced from Australian television and they have all been equally impressive in terms of both technical and artistic achievements.

If you make the mistake I did of not realizing this a combo disc and end up watching one episode on DVD and the other on Blu-ray you’ll quickly notice the sizeable differences in the technology. Both the audio and the visual quality of the Blu-ray are vastly superior to the DVD and this pulls you deeper into the proceedings. The HD sound and images of the former not only make the action more vivid, they somehow bring a level of emotional depth to the proceedings DVD is not able to match. Blu-ray’s ability to capture even the smallest of changes in expression on an actor’s face makes it feel like we are seeing deeper into their characterizations then we’ve ever been able to before.

Jack Irish is not only a great example of the mystery genre, it’s also a wonderfully executed character study. Thanks to a great performance from the show’s lead, Guy Pearce (The Australian actors in the supporting roles would be unknown to North Americans, but they are every bit as good as anybody you’d see on British television) and an excellent script, both feature length episodes included in the package are that rare combination of exciting action and in depth exploration of a character you rarely see on either the big or small screen. It’s no wonder Pearce flew home, half-way around the world to make these shows. Opportunities like these don’t come around very often.