Animal kingdom

Melbourne, the capital city of Australia's Victoria state, long had a middle-class image. Although it held the world's biggest Greek community outside Athens, it was often perceived by outsiders as a pseudo-English arty-farty place, if not quite so pretentious as Adelaide, the capital city that prided itself as being the only one in Oz not settled by convicts. Sydney, by comparison, was Irish, rougher and more fun.

Animal Kingdom is a sharply edgy reminder that Melbourne experienced one of modern Australia's toughest and most vicious gangland wars, for a decade from the mid-1990s to 2004. Events from its Carlton gang's bloodbath are portrayed loosely as the biography of the criminal Cody family.

The ever-smiling matriarch loves her three sons (bank robbers, drug dealer) effusively, addicted to French-kissing them. When her estranged single-mother daughter dies of a heroin overdose, she takes in 17-year-old grandson J. His uncles introduce him to the family business and their best friend and partner.

A good script, ensemble acting, pace and editing, but this version of reality feels sanitised. The inter-gang viciousness is understated, as is the local police corruption. In this scenario there's a good cop (Guy Pearce) trying to extricate the family's new boy. For once, a TV version of the same material (Underbelly) was reportedly a more disturbing portrait of a sick family and society. It was banned in Victoria (supposedly for legal reasons); the movie wasn't.