A 1985 Australian Thriller directed by Chris Thomson that follows a Private Investigator (Bryan Brown) being hired to find a woman's missing husband.
The movie also stars Anna Maria Monticelli, Belinda Giblin, Ray Barrett, John Wood, Peter Collingwood, and Nick Tate.
It was released on September 12, 1985.
Tropes for the film:
- Ass Shove: Cliff Hardy is given a Tracking Device by police and told to turn it on when the villains have made contact. To forestall the Obligatory Joke on where to hide it, the detective adds, "If you stick it up your ass, you won't be able to flick the switch!" It's left deliberately vague if Hardy really did hide the transmitter this way.
- Bleak Abyss Retirement Home: Cliff stumbles across a
Nightmare Fuel version, where the residents are locked in their rooms so their pensions can be collected and spent by the criminal running the place, who disposes of their bodies via an incinerator in the basement when they die of starvation and neglect. - Faking the Dead: Cliff is hired by the wife of the a businessman who's disappeared, apparently after some criminal associates gave him Cement Shoes. However, Hardy's investigation makes the criminals believe this trope is in play, and they start to turn on each other, which was her intention all along. At the end of the movie, she reveals that her husband really is alive and living overseas, and offers to hire Hardy to find him for real. Annoyed over how he's been manipulated, Hardy just walks off.
- The Film of the Book: Based on Peter Corris' 1983 novel of the same name.
- Tagline: "Cliff Hardy - One man against Sydney's Underworld".
