Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War: Missing Succession? Try this Aussie cricketing drama

Howzat: Kerry Packer’s War

I don’t really care that much about cricket, other than that our current teams seem like a lovely bunch of men and women compared to those feral mobs over the Tasman and that pack of effete buffoons who represent Pomgolia.

But, that has always been the nature of cricket. Because it has its roots deep in the cesspit of the English systems of class and privilege, every game and every team comes loaded with a heap of cultural baggage and blatantly racist assumptions about “national character” and other bilious drivel.

So when media mogul, Aussie larrikin and undoubted high-functioning narcissist Kerry Packer decided to go to war with the forces who ran the game in Australia and England, the stage was set for a punkish brawl out of which one winner would be left standing.

Packer’s beef was that he wanted to broadcast the game on his stations in Australia, and he was prepared to pay proper money to do it. But the powers that be in Australia were unwilling to take money from anyone who wasn’t “their kind”. Packer’s Ocker hackles stood on end, and it was all on for young and old.

The ensuing scrap led to the invention of World Series Cricket, the day-night match, the mainstreaming of 50-over, one-day matches, the introduction of the white ball, coloured uniforms and sportspeople actually earning a living by playing the game as brilliantly as they did. Kerry Packer’s “circus” led directly to the professionalism of the sport and also burnt a path that rugby would follow almost two decades later.

The series Howzat: Kerry Packer’s War is a cracker. The two feature-length episodes tell a far more engrossing and entertaining story than I would have thought was possible to wring out of the game.

As Packer, Australian Lachy Hulme turns in an unmissable piece of work, as reptilian and repellent as he is vulnerable and human. Around Hulme, a decent cast of Aussie and New Zealand players – including Craig Hall and Ryan O’Kane – all get the most out of the dense and mostly excellent script.

Howzat isn’t a “sports film” – it is just a bloody good time. If you’re missing Succession, you’ll like this.

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Stranger Things

Seeing season four of this finally drop last week made me reflect on just how long this show has been running.

Season one debuted in 2016, with a cast of very young adults and children, and has somehow pulled off the Harry Potter-level wizardry of maintaining that cast as the actors charge into teenage-hood and adolescence. They don’t give out Emmys and Oscars for casting directors – and I think that’s a shame. Picking a line-up of children who are still going to be able to carry a series, or a movie, six or 10 years down the track is an incredible skill, surely based as much instinct as training.

Series four starts with its intentions made very clear. Over the three previous iterations, the Stranger Things’ recipe of nostalgia played for laughs, suddenly caving in to reveal genuine R16-level horror is tried and tested. But now, with budgets to match their ambitions, the Duffer Brothers are surpassing the production values of most feature films in every episode. The editing in the first episode alone is incredible – with multiple narrative strands intercut in a way that takes months and an army of assistants to make work.

It’s also a treat to see the themes and inspirations in this new series emerge. Whereas the first years were clearly quoting from The Goonies, Poltergeist and E.T. at times, this fourth iteration seems to owe everything to Nightmare On Elm Street and its many sequels. Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors is an all-time cult classic. I think the Duffer Brothers mush have worn out a few copies as they wrote this season of Stranger Things.

In The Name Of The Father

Also turning up unexpectedly on my front page this week, this 1993 smash hit was the film – along with 1989’s My Left Foot – that had Daniel Day-Lewis acclaimed as pretty much the best wee acting machine on the planet – a mantle that Day-Lewis has never really relinquished.

Writer-director Jim Sheridan has always brought the best out in his actors. He was also behind My Left Foot.

Day-Lewis leads as Gerry Conlon, a real-life, low-level criminal from Belfast who was wrongfully accused and imprisoned by the British security forces in 1974 for being part of a gang who had bombed a British pub. Conlon spent years fighting to clear his and his father’s name.

In The Name Of The Father is a gritty, compelling and engrossing film. Day-Lewis is extraordinary, of course. He famously lost 20 kilos, was deprived of sleep and was interrogated for nine hours by actual police specialists, all to prepare for the role.

Next to Day-Lewis, the then little known Pete Postlethwaite was fabulous as Gerry’s dad. The inevitable Emma Thompson turns up as Conlon’s lawyer.

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