In Australia, can the cops just knock down your door? And then abuse the guy, and furthermore, hold him with no tangible evidence. My lord, if they can, that's sounding like Nazi Germany down there. That's really the more important question about this movie.
shareBefore 9/11 (which is when this film was made), even the Federal police couldn't do that, and the cops in this film are just regular state detectives. Now I'm not so sure. It used to be that feds could enter if they had "probable cause", but even so, they couldn't just break down the door, they'd have to knock first. Regular detectives (as in this film) would need a warrant just to enter the premises, let alone ransack the place and take all his stuff.
As far as holding someone with insufficient evidence, there is a time limit on that. Once the time runs out, they have to either charge you, or let you go. I don't know if 9/11 has changed that, but I know that now, if you're in the UK, they can detain you for 48 hours for no reason whatsoever. I don't think that can be done here yet.
This all tends to add weight to the thesis that the whole thing might have been set up in order to bust Steele. Fleming completely manipulates him from the get-go.
I was more thrown by the lawyer telling her client that she shouldn't stay with him during his interrogation, because she might be called as a witness against him? Huh? Did I hear that right? What's up with that!
“I always tell the truth…even when I lie” - Scarface
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Dude, it's a movie, not a documentary!
... the generation itself was shortlived and small in number.
Yeah, what the Illuminated Hipster said.
Worse things have happened in movies set in other countries - hello have you seen Street Kings or that thing with Angelina Jolie (Changeling?).
Police break down the doors in the US, England and every other country in the world.
Moronic question.
Nazi Germany? Sounds more like a Chuck Norris or Clint Eastwood film.
But that aside, here in South Australia, the police can hold you on suspicion for 4 hours. They can get another 4 hours extensions with the permission of a magistrate.
By procedure, police will tell you of the reason for your arrest.
No they may not search and seize property without a warrant.
http://www.lawhandbook.sa.gov.au/ch02s02.php
That's how it works here in the state of South Australia. Victoria, where the film is set, is probably much the same (there's a fair degree of uniformity in such matters).
But this film is essentially about a pair of cops throwing the rule book away, and trying to sort out the bad guys cowboy style anyway.
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Lawfully, they can't.
Legally, they probably can nowadays, or at least they can 'get away with it'.
Beyond law AND legal system, they can do anything they want - and do (black ops etc.)
On the other hand..
Anyone with a gun can shoot a human, at least technically speaking (if not ethically/morally). Anyone with enough power, resources and technique can knock down a weak enough door. The question thus is a bit silly - to use the word "can they" should be specified a bit better.
I mean, anyone with a rock, CAN break your window (if he has a relatively good aim, unless you live high enough that it becomes a technical impossibility, or you have thick enough windows etc.), but it doesn't mean they are 'allowed to', or that they can do so lawfully (legally it's a different matter sometimes).
So what it boils down to is - what do you really mean by "CAN"?
Do you mean "are they legally allowed to", or do you mean "are they lawfully allowed to", or do you mean "is it possible for them to disregard law and the legal system altogether, and just do whatever they think needs doing"?
The word "can" has the secondary meaning of permissive use as well as ability, it doesn't have to be just "may".
He meant "are they lawfully allowed" and you know it, nobody likes a nitpick. Especially when it takes up more than half of your entire post.
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Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague... and we are the cure.
In the eighties a lot of corruption was rooted out of the Queensland police during the Fitzgerald Inquiry. I felt that this movie was a reaction to that in some ways. So yeah, the cops were doing a lot of dodgy stuff not that long before this movie was made.
I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe