The Straits

Meet the Montebellos. Harry, paterfamilias, seems a decent bloke who’s looking out for his kids – and for his pet chihuahua, who’s getting old and needs a bespoke staircase to mount the bed. Kitty, his wife, dotes on her adopted sons: Gary, Marou the preacher man, and especially Noel, the eldest. And daughter Sissi, the Lisa Simpson of the family.

Typical, slightly quirky, middle-Australian television family, yes? Yes. Except the Montebello clan are crooks. Harry smuggles drugs and guns into the country from PNG via the Torres Strait Islands, and the whole family’s in on it. But when he starts to plan his succession, playing his sons off against each other in a battle for the top job and pissing off Kitty in the process, he sets off what promises to be a bloodthirsty, bullet-riddled, testosterone-fuelled ten-episode season of this new local series.

The first two episodes – or movie-length premiere, as it’ll be screened – dished out enough savage torture, drive-by shootings, bikie thugs, sex, assassinations, gun battles and explosions that I had to double check Channel Nine didn’t have a hand in it. But unlike the Underbelly franchise, which seems gratuitously Michael Bay-ish, there’s something supremely laconic about the way The Straits presents all this blood and violence. It’s there, it’s shown to us, but it’s not dwelled on, or obsessed over. Everything seems more pleasant when you’re wearing thongs.

Take the scene in the swimming pool. I won’t tell you any more than that, except to say that it’s extraordinarily vicious and cold-blooded whilst also being coldly beautiful and reserved. Not a drop of blood is spilled but it’s one of the more brutal things I’ve seen in a while. And I watch shows like Spartacus, Game of Thrones and Deadwood, the latter being one of the shows that inspired The Straits, according to Aaron Fa’aoso, who came up with the idea.

It’s a weird one. I’m genuinely not sure who it’s aimed at. Is it The Slap in the Tropics, or is it Crownies with crooks? Perhaps it’s summed up best by venerable British actor Brian Cox, who plays Harry, when he says "it's like The Sopranos, only with a thousand times better weather and scenery."

Yes, Brian Cox. He of the upcoming Shakespeare adaptation Coriolanus. It’s a coup for the show’s producers, Matchbox Pictures (Blue Murder, Brides of Christ), and although he hams up his affection for his pampered pooch, he’s convincing as the patriarch/drug czar gone troppo. He’s backed by other well-known cast and crew, including Rena Owen (Once Were Warriors) as Kitty, Kym Gyngell (Wilfred, Lowdonwn) as Harry’s accountant, and playwright Louis Nowra (Cosi), one of the series’ writers. Joining them are Firass Dirani (Underbelly: The Golden Mile) as Gary, Fa’aoso (East West 101) as Noel, and Emma Lung (Peaches) as Marou’s wife Lola – who proves herself a stand-out to watch as the devoted and devout God-fearing wife who uses un-Christian sex to get what she wants.

There are comical scenes – a boat person in an esky; a rastafarian who quotes Mythbusters and take calls from his “mummy” while he’s cooking meth – that sometimes feel a bit desperate, and the idyll of the scenery threatens to make this yet another Australian glamorisation of crime, but for the most part The Straits delivers promising local drama that's no doubt set to become a favourite.

Far-north Queensland. Beautiful one day, perfectly criminal the next.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The Straits
Premiering Thursday February 2
ABC1, 8.30pm
More info: www.abc.net.au