Brock miniseries: worth a credit

So the Brock miniseries has run, but has it won? Those anticipating or wanting documentary-style, factually-accurate TV have found plenty of fault with it.

But, as with Rush, the film about Niki Lauda and James Hunt flighting for the 1976 Formula 1 World Championship, that’s not what you get when it’s a dramatisation. A touring car/Brock purist was never going to be satisfied with what went to air the past couple of nights. But it’s not all about the purist.

All things considered, Endemol Shine/Network Ten’s Brock is a work of considerable merit, even wonder. Especially in light of the apparent difficulties in obtaining old vision from long-time Bathurst telecaster, Network Seven.

And in having to get rid of cigarette liveries in footage of many old Brock cars.

Matt Le Nevez is passable in the lead role of the driver who remains the biggest name in Australian national motor racing and still unquestionably King of the Mountain more than 10 years after his death.

Le Nevez has some of Brock’s good looks, but maybe any actor would come up a bit short in capturing the natural essence of the unique Brock. Better are Brendan Cowell as Brock’s great rival Allan Moffat and Steve Bisley as Brock’s early team boss, Harry Firth.

Of the women characters, Natalie Bassingthwaighte is far better as Julie Bamford, Brock’s final girlfriend, than Ella Scott Lynch as Bev Brock, his long-time partner.

The worst choice was whoever plays John Harvey, Brock’s teammate and several years his senior yet looking in this series almost a teenager. And who was that as Larry Perkins? Cowell again? Too big and beefy.

The Polariser tale, still so intriguing to so many, is well told, even if the depiction of ‘the device’ is pretty crude.

The scripting of the man who brought the mysterious crystals into Brock’s life, Eric Dowker, is spot on, but how he came to be known as ‘Dr Feelgood’ on the screen is another mystery.

And the lead Holden executive with whom Brock argues the merit of the Polariser is a strange amalgam of characters.

Watching much of the four hours of television with a mate who was quite central to a lot of Brock’s adult life, but whose part in the series we almost could have missed, we thought overall that Brock the telemovie was generally a commendable effort.

We gave it a 7.5 out of 10. At least.

What about you?