Set in Sydney in the 1920s, Underbelly: Razor follows the razor gangs of the 1920s and the battle for the underworld between vice queens Tilly Devine and Kate Leigh.
I have an ongoing problem with the Underbelly series – how can I enjoy a program where I hate all the characters?
Every Underbelly series has been almost exclusively populated with the most annoyingly stupid and selfish people known to man. We’ve been asked to sympathise with criminals, prostitutes, crooked cops and so much more. Maybe I’m too straight-laced, but you would need some of the most charming actors on the planet to make me care about what happens to anyone in these shows.
This wasn’t such a problem in the first series, which was genuinely explosive drama and had enough charming actors to see it through – while also being fantastically of the time. It was undeniably Australian television at very close to its finest.
Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities however, was incredibly skeevy – to the point of unwatchability – and descended into completely mad plotting hell in its later episodes.
Underbelly: The Golden Mile was just solid and unspectacular – not as bad as series two but nowhere near as good as series one.
So that brings us to the fourth series of a show with stagnating, if not diminishing returns – Underbelly: Razor. Here we have what is basically the Australian sibling of Boardwalk Empire – a crime series set in the twenties and invoking all the social mores and visual signifiers of that age – flappers, pinstripe suits, hats. So many hats. More importantly, though, this was a chance for a Brand New Underbelly. A chance for the reinvention of the series. A chance to really achieve something.
So what did we get?
We got the same old Underbelly. Just with more hats.
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