Streaming on Stan - Dylan River and Tanith Glynn-Maloney ace it with THOU SHALT NOT STEAL (8 eps, Australia, 2024)

Miranda Otto, Sherry-Lee Watson, Will McDonald, Noah Taylor

It's only wild surmise of course but I reckon if Dylan River and Tanith Glynn-Maloney were to go on Mastermind their specialty subject would have to be The Films of Joel & Ethan Coen. They have learned the lessons well, probably following them up with intensive scrutiny of the TV series spinoffs of Fargo.

Not to be sneezed at in a time when too many of our film-makers, often working in pairs, cant get beyond repeating (a neutral term intended) the tropes of mostly hack horror movies or the more violent moments of Quentin Tarantino. 

In Thou Shalt Not Steal a  runaway from 'juvie", as a naive local cop calls it, Robyn (Sherry-Lee Watson) steals a taxi and heads for her dad's home after busting him out of hospital. Dad is dying and wants to give her father, whom Robyn doesn't even know is alive, a Cup. In pursuit are the authorities and the taxi driver. ...at least for starters. They start off somewhere in the Northern Territory before the action shifts to Coober Pedy and then to Adelaide. 

By about episode four it dawns on you  that there has still been absolutely no explanation as to the source of the bag of money got into the boot of the taxi ...and there never will be unless you assume that prostitutes can earn such amounts in the outback and keep it in travelling bags in the boot of their car. We know it's causing Miranda Otto's taxi driver a lot of grief and to do some rather revolting things in cahoots with Robert (Noah Taylor, seedily brilliant) who's a fake preacher who otherwise spends his life sly grogging to remote blackfella communities.... and jacking off in his caravan. 

Director River and his co-creator Glynn-Maloney are very good at doing some slight time shifts and some brilliant changes of perspective, a Coen brothers trope. Thus the various introductions of Robert's son Gidge (Will McDonald) almost always grab you with a start - the 'suicide attempt', the discovery in the back seat, the pissing scene around the tree and the appearance trussed up in the car boot are just ripper bits of comedy, superbly timed and staged to maximum effect.  If you want an example (small spoiler alert) it occurs with the scene with shotgun in  the back seat. 

The series rips through its eight eps at just 27 minutes or less each. 

It's the best thing done in these parts all year and I was somewhat amazed that Stan backed it until the credits reveal that Amanda Duthie is now running this part of Stan's business. Another impressive notch in her career as a commissioner and producer.