We’d all like to imagine the late Shane Warne on that great big oval in the sky, bowling a flipper. Or maybe the cricket legend’s preferred afterlife is loafing about on a banana lounge, sucking on a tinnie and smoking a cheeky dart. But according to Channel Nine’s chaotically incompetent and just plain strange two-part biopic, which has about the same level of dramatic sophistication as the subject’s commercial for Leggo’s chicken cacciatore, Warnie is currently spending his time poring over his existence and chatting about it endlessly, like a self-hosted episode of This is Your Life broadcast from beyond the grave.
Before we’ve been visually introduced to Alex Williams, the actor playing Warne, director Geoff Bennett does something weird and inserts footage of the actual Warne appearing on Parkinson. Rather than immersing us in the narrative world and pretending the actor playing him is actually him, this just reminds us that Williams, while sharing some physical similarities, isn’t the real deal. In sporting terms, you could describe this as a spectacular own goal.
Bennett and writer Matt Ford waste no time inserting voiceover narration from Williams as Warne, posthumously reflecting on his life and death – and of course his cricket career. This kicks off an epic gabfest (the tone emulating a tipsy bloke at the pub talking your ear off) extensively deployed from beginning to end. Warne describes spin bowling as a “magic trick” and himself a “grand magician” who “created chaos”. We see shots of his epic funeral at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as he brags that “thousands and thousands of people showed up”, including some of the biggest stars in the world.
After touching on several of his life’s controversies, including “sex and betting”, being “a drug cheat” and a “villain one day, saint the next”, Warnie then turns on the viewer. “No matter what, I always pulled a crowd,” he says, so “what does that say about you guys?”
I dare say it doesn’t reflect well on us. His rhetorical question suggests the series will engage with a provocative discussion around whether Australia celebrates the wrong kind of people or, alternatively, whether we heap unfair expectations on our celebrities. But Bennett and Ford aren’t serious about exploring this, unless they thought this involved merely recapping Warne’s controversies – such as taking money from an Indian bookkeeper, allegations he harassed a British nurse, and being suspended from cricket after testing positive for banned diuretics.
These are necessary talking points for any serious attempt to explore Warne’s life, and in a more sophisticated production they might have added some depth, some light and shade. But nothing has substance here and in fact the whole thing feels a bit off, Warne’s relatively recent death (in March last year) adding to a feeling that this production has been hurried down the assembly line, without much thought put into it.
Sometimes Bennett and Ford seem to shrug their shoulders and say: it’s all too hard. When, for example, Warne is shown being offered US$200,000 by the captain of the Pakistani team to “bowl some trash”, Warnie the narrator suddenly seems to forget key details of his own life. “There are so many versions of this story ... nobody seems to agree,” he says, in an attempt to justify the writer’s decision to skip over it. But he was there, wouldn’t he know?
This unrelenting narration continues to monster the production, which perhaps improves a smidge in its latter half in the sense we become more accustomed to its anarchic rhythms. The second episode begins with Warne reminiscing on his relationship with Liz Hurley (“It’s gotta be a dream: Liz Hurley!”) while we watch them hang out. The narrator himself pauses a scene showing them canoodling on the street, exclaiming: “Stop, stop! You people, it’s all you want to know about ... can we just talk about cricket?” Hang on mate, you brought it up!
Williams’ central performance provides a little colour but is weightless, though it’s a deceptively difficult role, requiring the projection of dramatic depth through an aura of approachability and ordinariness. Generally, the acting is subpar, though the cast – which includes Marny Kennedy as Warne’s wife Simone – had an uphill battle against such a clunky script. Anthony Hayes, who plays Warne’s mentor Terry Jenner (AKA TJ), is a fine actor but you wouldn’t know it just from this production, which has a knack for reducing characters to outlines.
The series belongs to a collection of two-part TV biopics focused on Australian celebrities, ranging from the very good (2016’s Molly and 2017’s Friday on My Mind) to the very bad (2017’s Hoges and 2017’s Underbelly Files: Chopper). Sadly Warnie falls in the latter camp. As it approaches conclusion, one is hardly surprised by a lurch into shmaltziness, with Warne asking us to “forget the Gatting ball” because “the real miracle” is friendship and family. By this point the viewer doesn’t need a miracle; we just need it to be over.
Warnie airs over two nights at 7pm on 25 June and 7.30pm on 26 June on Channel Nine and will be available to stream on 9Now.
