Currently I’m watching the first couple of episodes of the new Strine crime drama Underbelly. It’s been causing major ruckus down under because it’s based on real people and real crimes – including stuff which has yet to come to court (hence the injunction the other day banning its broadcast in the state of Victoria).
It’s pretty good so far, all about the Melbourne gangland feuds and killings of the 90s and 00s, something I’d got interested in before I’d even heard about this show. It all links in with stuff like the Painters & Decorators and Chopper Read (Vince Colosimo, Neville Bartos in Chopper, is in it too) and the phet trade and even (tangentially) with the Queensland corruption scandal, which spawned one of my favourite hardboiled Aussie TV movies, The Clean Machine.
But anyways, looks like it might be one to watch.
For the purposes of HonkWatch we see the aforementioned Vince Colosimo as Alphonse Gangitano splattering his cell after being picked up for the infamous Sports Bar brawl, in which he and fellow hoodlum Jason Moran battered the crap out of a pubful of customers for no reason other than, um, well, being deviant, macho, thieving arseholes.
Screenage Kicks 