Bali 2002

My Review - Bali 2020 My Rating 7/10 Streaming on Stan On the 20th Anniversary of the cruel and callous terrorist attacks on Bali's tourist hotspots, this 4 part dramatisation series explores how everyday heroes from Bali, Australia and beyond defied the odds to bring order from chaos and hope from despair it also portrays the pain and loss that the victims experienced.

It's particularly disturbing after watching this series to read that the Islamic militant Umar Patek was granted early release weeks before 20th anniversary of the terror attack that killed 202 mostly Australian tourists.

In 2021 the 82-year-old former head of Jemaah Islamiah, an al-Qaeda-inspired group behind the attack that killed 202 people.

People from 21 nations died in the blasts on 12 October 2002 on the popular holiday island of Bali. The two bombs had ripped through Paddy's Irish Bar and the nearby Sari Club in the Kuta tourist district.

Directors Peter Andrikidis and Katrina Irawati Graham have done a splendid job as well as the script writers Marcia Gardner, Justin Monjo and Kris Wyld.

It's not a long drawn out series and achieves a good balance between telling the personal story of loss of some of the victims without exaggeration or sensationalism .

It also presents the critical political events that in some ways hampered the investigations between the Indonesian Crime authorities and the Australian Investigation Team headed by Graham Ashton, the former AFP officer and, later, chief commissioner of Victoria Police.

Richard Roxburgh in my opinion gives one of his best performances as Graham Ashton it a far removed role from his usual edgy roles such as Cleaver Greene in Rake . He is almost understated as the chief investigator who has to negotiate a fine line between observing the cultural differences that threaten to destroy the vital evidence his team needs to find the murderous terrorists responsible.

It's an impressive cast led by Claudia Jessie as British tourist Polly Miller, Rachel Griffiths as burns specialist Dr Fiona Wood, Richard Roxburgh as Australian Federal Police Commander Graham Ashton and Sean Keenan as AFL star Jason McCartney.

The other revelation for me disclosed in this story was the fact that the vital intelligence predicting possible terrorist activity at the time was either ignored or not considered urgent by The Liberal Government headed by the PM at the time John Howard .

The subject matter is disturbing and may distress some viewers but the Producers have done justice to this terrible event.

The first 2 episodes were super full on. My anxiety was threw the roof! I was on the edge of my seat...even though I knew what was going to happen it was still terrifying waiting for it and they built the suspense well.

There's blood and gore so don't watch it you're not ok with things like that.

The last 2 episodes were well done and the acting was good.

The whole thing just really makes you feel so sad for the victims and their families. I shed many tears at the end.

The only disappointing thing is the footballer in real life actually got as burnt as he did by saving other people, which wasn't shown in the show. He was a hero.

There were some confronting scenes which really hit home the devastation victims and their families have had to endure. The acting and directing overall was good enough to want to watch each episode until the end. It wasn't intended to be a blockbuster but a timely documentation of the pain and suffering of the victims and the investigation occurring at the time. And that's exactly what this series is. For the critics attacking the actors; I think they played their roles very well, particularly as traumatised victims both during and after the bombings. I think perhaps they could have shared more stories or followed the progress of the victims' recoveries in more depth, but that's just nit-picking to reach the 600 word count required by this review.

I wasn't paying attention to the news when this happened, so this was interesting because I didn't know too much about it. The series did a good job of showing the shock and chaos of those first few hours. I liked how they worked with the timelines and interspersing some original footage. The show was well done, it wasn't emotionally manipulative, but very real. (Although I did fast forward through a few bits that were too tragic). I liked that it touched on the practical details of how to handle a disaster like this, both politically and medically.

What an incredible job the AFP did afterwards, in such difficult circumstances.

This limited series was so respectfully and delicately put together I was so impressed, I feel they really did the victims of this horrible event justice. I hope they feel the same. The acting was so genuine and real that it broke my heart into pieces.

We have to talk about the actress Sri Ayu Jati Kartika who plays Luh. She embodied the unified broken hearts of the Bali people when the Bali bombings happened and how hard this was for them. My heart broke all over again and ached the whole time watching this through to the very end. Not just the victims of the bombing but the Bali people and everyone affected. This actress was so good I can't believe IMDB haven't even pictured her in here yet. She is brilliant. Her tears flowed so freely I wanted to break through the screen and give the poor woman a hug. So broken hearted. She truely embodied the worlds sentiment of such a horrid event.

Richard Roxburgh and Srisacd Sacdpraseuth and their performances to show the working bond between the two countries was beautifully delicate like a dance. So well done. These men behaved so amicably, if only the men at the top behaved this way!!!

Well done channel nine and Stan for putting this together it was beautiful.