Rake (TV Series) R vs Murray (2010) User Reviews

Excellent start to the series

[grantss · 9/10 · 23 September 2022]

I really didn't know what to expect when i started watching this show. My one thought was that it would a be a legal drama with some humour thrown in. Turns out it is that...and so very much more!

This, the first episode, immediately lets you know this is not just any law-orientated series. No easing into this, everything's out there: Cleaver Green's gambling problem, his love for a prostitute, his ex-wife being his therapist, his simmering relationship with his colleague/best friend's wife, his run-ins with authority.

Moreover, we see that his clients and cases are not at all "normal". Here his client is a cannibal! This sets the tone immediately and lets you know how things are going to be going forward.

The cannibal is played by Hugo Weaving which also set a tone for the series in that the clients are often played by well known actors/actresses. Next episode we had Lisa McCune.

The Dark Carnival Begins

[JasonDanielBaker · 25 January 2014]

Sydney barrister Cleaver Greene (Richard Roxburgh) has the distasteful task of defending government economics adviser Professor Graham Murray (Hugo Weaving) on murder charges. In a media-sensationalized case the accused is prepared to stipulate he is a cannibal but not a murderer.

Seemingly everyone wants to put the Hannibal Lecter clone away without debating legal niceties. Greene has other ideas because technically the corpse Murray consumed was a suicide who volunteered to be eaten and the jurisdiction has no law on the books against cannibalism (not really an issue in Australia since a single incident way back in 1826).

Cleave is without an office as the series begins. Divorced and living above a cafe he is fighting tax evasion charges and disappointment that his favorite prostitute has left the business to go to university. He is also facing violent reprisals from a bookie to whom he owes big money. On top of that he is trying to be a father to a teenaged son who is more mature than he is and he is nursing a longstanding crush on his best friends wife.

Whatever else he may be he has redeeming qualities. He is a brilliant lawyer with a penchant for championing lost causes raising the curtain on the dark recesses where bizarre legal minutiae reside.

What do you reckon fair-minded folks would think if an old fella like me went full on earbashing with my praise of this brilliant satire? I'll risk them thinking my summary is furphy typed whilst off my face on a gutful of grog.

On yet another yobbo's fossick for great foreign television I discovered 'Rake' but only after the American version with Greg Kinnear had debuted. I'm glad I did because this show is a ton of fun.

Average and most times boring.

[graceanu · 5/10 · 7 October 2019]

I don't know what the hype is about. The episode revolved more around the lawyer rather than the case. Even though his life wasn't interesting or intriguing in any sense. When it did start to focus on the case, I got engulfed in the story.