BLACK AND WHITE
Year: 2002
UK: Tartan Films
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Charles Dance, Kerry Fox, Colin Friels, Ben Mendelsohn, David Ngoombujarra, Bille Brown, John Gregg, Roy Billing, Gary Waddell, Heather Mitchell, Patrick Duggan, Andrew Martin, Frank Gallacher, Rhys McConnochie, Vincent Ball, Peter Whitford, Donald Macdonald, Peter Carroll, Max Stuart, Penne Hackforth - Jones, Chris Haywood, Petru Gheorgiu, Tim Robertson, Josephine Byrnes, Susan Lyons, Don Barker, Marshall Napier, Paul Sonkkila, Scott Harrison, Andy Anderson, Nick Readman, Edmund Pegge, Edwin Hodgeman, Paul Simpson, Briah Victory, Steve Turner, Kenneth Ken, Maurice Nicholson, Lisa Flanagan
Director: Craig Lahiff
Countries: Australia / UK
UK: 99 mins
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language and moderate violence
UK Release Date: 9 January 2004
Synopsis
BLACK AND WHITE is a compelling story based on a 1959 landmark trial that irrevocably changed police procedure and judicial authority in South Australia.
It is Christmas 1958 in conservative Adelaide, a city that prides itself on its peaceful, well-bred qualities. An excitable young lawyer, David O'Sullivan (Robert Carlyle), is given the news that he has drawn a 'bad lottery prize' - a legal aid case. He must defend a young Aboriginal man Max Stuart (David Ngoombujarra) who has been arrested for the rape and murder of a nine year old girl in the far west desert town of Ceduna. O'Sullivan soon concludes that the aborigine has been framed by the local police and decides he must take a stand. He finds himself pitted against Chamberlain (Charles Dance), South Australia's Crown Prosecutor, a forbidding but tremendously charismatic character. O'Sullivan and his legal partner, Helen Devaney (Kerry Fox), embark on a 'David and Goliath' battle that threatens the world of closed ranks, hidden evidence and the establishment.
Aided by the young Rupert Murdoch, who is fast making a name for himself with his paper the Adelaide News, O'Sullivan takes the case to the highest courts in the Commonwealth. Manoeuvring narratives of political manipulation, police corruption and personal crisis, this is a wonderfully compelling story of right and wrong.