Guy Pearce seems to be everywhere theses days. The Australian actor, who burst onto the scene playing a drag queen in 1994’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Jungle, added to his resume, starring in L.A. Confidential (1997), and the cult film, Memento (2000). These days, he’s being noticed with supporting roles in two streaming hits – Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, on Amazon Prime, and Mare of Easttown, on HBO Max. For those who want to see more of Pearce, the series to binge is Jack Irish, available on Acorn TV.
Jack Irish was launched on Australian TV in 2012 with three feature-length movies – Bad Debts, Black Tide, and Dead Point – based on the detective novels of Peter Temple. The success of those films led to a series with two seasons, each with six episodes, and a third available soon.
Bad Debts opens with a tragedy that sends Jack, a criminal attorney, on a downward spiral. A disgruntled client shows up at the law office and shoots and kills Jack’s wife, Isabel. Giving up his practice, Jack operates as a private investigator and debt collector. That life, however, is no less dangerous. Trouble, often from Jack’s past, continues to seek him out with deadly consequences. In this first film, Jack gets a voice message from a former client, Danny McKillop, who has just gotten out of prison after being convicted in a hit-and-run death. McKillop says he has evidence that he was set up. Danny is killed before Jack can talk to him. Jack meets a reporter, Linda Hillier (Marta Dusseldorp), who helps him uncover a conspiracy.
Linda, soon a love interest, becomes a series regular along with several others who balance out the violence with a great deal of humor. Jack’s “club” is the Prince of Prussia, a seen-better-days pub run by Stan (Damien Garvey), whose memorabilia commemorating epic moments in football decorate the walls. Jack’s father was a football star and his biggest fans – a trio of octogenarians – have laid claim to three prime bar stools, much to Stan’s dismay, drinking from dawn to dusk and continually debating which soccer game was the best.
Jack’s most loyal client is Harry Strang (Roy Billing), a racing aficionado and horse owner, whose methods for getting across the finish line often cross the line. Cam Delray (Aaron Pedersen), Harry’s muscle, tough on the outside, squishy on the inside, saves Jack as often as he saves Harry. Jack’s former law partner, Drew Greer (Daniel Richardson), meets with Jack, ostensibly to offer legal advice, but usually to discuss his latest train-wreck romance. Coming to Jack’s aid whenever he’s arrested (often) or needs inside information (constantly) is Barry Tregear (Shane Jacobson), a cop with a paunch and an appetite for sticky buns. Rounding out Jack’s team is Simone (Kate Atkinson), whose computer skills are far superior to those on the dating front. When Jack wants to get away from business, he transitions to his job as an intern in the woodworking shop run by Charlie Taub (played by Vadim Glowna in the films and David Ritchie in six episodes in season one).
Jack, who had a terrible relationship with his now deceased father, takes on the case of a missing son with links to the past. Des Connors (Ronald Jacobson), was one of Jack’s father’s work mates. In Black Tide, Gary Connors has disappeared, along with what remains of his Des’ money. Jack’s relationship with Linda takes a hit as he plunges into another investigation that places himself, and everyone around him, in danger.
In Dead Point, Jack’s former father-in-law, Justice Loder (Barry Humphires), had a dalliance in a private club and is being blackmailed to drop an investigation regarding criminal conduct on the waterfront. Loder asks Jack to find a red book containing photographs that will implicate him. Linda signs on to help and begins to understand the depths of Jack’s grief over losing his wife, Isabel. This third film is the best of the three – and that’s saying a lot. It packs a wallop, not only with action, but with the emotional turmoil Jack endures dealing with the past and trying to find a future.
After watching these three films, you won’t be able to resist the two series. The first takes Linda to Manilla where she hopes to land an interview with a terrorist. Back in Australia, Jack’s investigation into a mega-church pastor places a bull’s eye on his back. But it’s not a coincidence that what Linda and Jack are looking into soon merge – the link, a massacre that occurred in the Philippines.
In season two, a courier Jack once hired to deliver a package is found dead – three years later. Looking into the young man’s death leads Jack to a college that heavily recruits foreign students with promises that never pan out. In addition, many of those young people are recruited for a drug trial and later die. When he asks Linda, who is in the Philippines, to look into the students’ deaths, he places her in mortal danger. Another edge-of-the-seat nail-biter.
The notoriously private Pearce apparently prefers to spend his down time in low-key Melbourne, rather than in Hollywood. But he’ll be back in the third and final season where, according to Variety, the series delves into “Irish’s past and brings him face-to-face with an adversary more personal and destructive than any he’s ever known.”
In an interview, Pearce observed: “I’m very much looking forward to Jack’s final hurrah, but also feeling a deep sense of melancholy knowing it will be our last.”
Ditto for fans of this exciting, engaging series.
Jack Irish can be streamed on Acorn TV.
Photos courtesy of Acorn TV
