The Squad (1981)

Country

Australia

How it feels

A squad of detectives works on a case. The plot gets complicated and hard to follow. The film was made as a pilot for a TV series that never happened.

slow-burntensedatedconvolutedlow-energyunpolishedconfusinguneven

What happens

The Squad is a 1981 Australian television film about a squad of detectives. It was the pilot for a series that was never made, intended to be a replacement for the TV show Skyways. It was filmed in Sydney in the first half of 1981. It first aired in Sydney on 12 November 1981 and then in Melbourne, retitled as Homicide Squad, on 18 May 1982. The Sydney Morning Herald's Garry Shelley said "I had to make a hasty decision. Should I (a) stick with it and try to work out just who was on which side of the law, or (b) go to sleep. After an hour, the latter won over." Brian Courtis in the Age wrote "Its banal dialogue and the unnecessarily complicated plot exposition are not improved by director Robert Meillon's woeful mishandling. Meillon seems to have controlled this disaster like an orchestra conductor with his hands tied behind his back." TV Week movie critic Ivan Hutchinson gave it one out of four stars and called it an "interesting thriller". (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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