My Review - Bali 2020
My Rating 7/10
Streaming on Stan
On the 20th Anniversary of the cruel and callous terrorist attacks on Bali's tourist hotspots, this 4 part dramatisation series explores how everyday heroes from Bali, Australia and beyond defied the odds to bring order from chaos and hope from despair it also portrays the pain and loss that the victims experienced.
It's particularly disturbing after watching this series to read that the Islamic militant Umar Patek was granted early release weeks before 20th anniversary of the terror attack that killed 202 mostly Australian tourists.
In 2021 the 82-year-old former head of Jemaah Islamiah, an al-Qaeda-inspired group behind the attack that killed 202 people.
People from 21 nations died in the blasts on 12 October 2002 on the popular holiday island of Bali. The two bombs had ripped through Paddy's Irish Bar and the nearby Sari Club in the Kuta tourist district.
Directors Peter Andrikidis and Katrina Irawati Graham have done a splendid job as well as the script writers Marcia Gardner, Justin Monjo and Kris Wyld.
It's not a long drawn out series and achieves a good balance between telling the personal story of loss of some of the victims without exaggeration or sensationalism .
It also presents the critical political events that in some ways hampered the investigations between the Indonesian Crime authorities and the Australian Investigation Team headed by Graham Ashton, the former AFP officer and, later, chief commissioner of Victoria Police.
Richard Roxburgh in my opinion gives one of his best performances as Graham Ashton it a far removed role from his usual edgy roles such as Cleaver Greene in Rake . He is almost understated as the chief investigator who has to negotiate a fine line between observing the cultural differences that threaten to destroy the vital evidence his team needs to find the murderous terrorists responsible.
It's an impressive cast led by Claudia Jessie as British tourist Polly Miller, Rachel Griffiths as burns specialist Dr Fiona Wood, Richard Roxburgh as Australian Federal Police Commander Graham Ashton and Sean Keenan as AFL star Jason McCartney.
The other revelation for me disclosed in this story was the fact that the vital intelligence predicting possible terrorist activity at the time was either ignored or not considered urgent by The Liberal Government headed by the PM at the time John Howard .
The subject matter is disturbing and may distress some viewers but the Producers have done justice to this terrible event.
It's particularly disturbing after watching this series to read that the Islamic militant Umar Patek was granted early release weeks before 20th anniversary of the terror attack that killed 202 mostly Australian tourists.
In 2021 the 82-year-old former head of Jemaah Islamiah, an al-Qaeda-inspired group behind the attack that killed 202 people.
People from 21 nations died in the blasts on 12 October 2002 on the popular holiday island of Bali. The two bombs had ripped through Paddy's Irish Bar and the nearby Sari Club in the Kuta tourist district.
Directors Peter Andrikidis and Katrina Irawati Graham have done a splendid job as well as the script writers Marcia Gardner, Justin Monjo and Kris Wyld.
It's not a long drawn out series and achieves a good balance between telling the personal story of loss of some of the victims without exaggeration or sensationalism .
It also presents the critical political events that in some ways hampered the investigations between the Indonesian Crime authorities and the Australian Investigation Team headed by Graham Ashton, the former AFP officer and, later, chief commissioner of Victoria Police.
Richard Roxburgh in my opinion gives one of his best performances as Graham Ashton it a far removed role from his usual edgy roles such as Cleaver Greene in Rake . He is almost understated as the chief investigator who has to negotiate a fine line between observing the cultural differences that threaten to destroy the vital evidence his team needs to find the murderous terrorists responsible.
It's an impressive cast led by Claudia Jessie as British tourist Polly Miller, Rachel Griffiths as burns specialist Dr Fiona Wood, Richard Roxburgh as Australian Federal Police Commander Graham Ashton and Sean Keenan as AFL star Jason McCartney.
The other revelation for me disclosed in this story was the fact that the vital intelligence predicting possible terrorist activity at the time was either ignored or not considered urgent by The Liberal Government headed by the PM at the time John Howard .
The subject matter is disturbing and may distress some viewers but the Producers have done justice to this terrible event.