Filmmaker Martin Brown, right, signs a co-operation agreement with the Bandidos

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Shooting Milperra's massacre - By Danielle Teutsch
The Sun-Herald - January 30, 2005

As a movie it's a natural, but getting this piece of history on film is proving hard, Danielle Teutsch writes.

THE MILPERRA bikie massacre of Father's Day, 1984, has left its mark on Sydney. The violent shoot-out at the Viking Tavern left seven people dead, including a 15-year-old girl who was an innocent bystander.

For the public who watched, stunned, as the news unfolded on television, it was a surreal experience that changed their perceptions of the city. "I think before, people felt this city was like a big country town," says filmmaker Martin Brown. "Bad things like that happened elsewhere."

The massacre prompted changes to firearms legislation and led to the largest trial in NSW judicial history. It spawned two books, including the bestseller Brothers In Arms written by Sandra Harvey and Lindsay Simpson.

Considering most seminal events in Australia's short span of white history have been picked over by filmmakers it is surprising that, 20 years on, we have not seen a film on the Milperra massacre. After all, it has all the elements: bikes, blondes, rock'n'roll, violence. There's also tragedy, drama and a gripping court case.

It's not that filmmakers haven't tried. Industry veteran Richard Bradley has been working for some years on a version called Brothers At War, to star actors Colin Friels and Lisa Hensley, but he is still trying to raise enough funds.

Then there are the difficulties of securing the co-operation of the two rival gangs who conducted warfare that day in the Viking Tavern: the Bandidos and the Comancheros.

To this day the two groups have little contact and are said to be still traumatised by the event.

So one might think Martin Brown - a Sydney filmmaker who has worked with Baz Luhrman on Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge - something of a masochist for throwing his hat into the ring.

But he is convinced the Milperra massacre is a drama of Shakespearean proportions and a story that needs to be told. And he is not prepared to give up easily.

The documentary The One Percenters, screening on ABC TV on Wednesday, is about his dogged efforts to get his film made, shedding as much light on the massacre itself as the long and tortuous process of filmmaking.

In the beginning we meet young screenwriter Jason Kent, who bought the rights to the book Brothers In Arms and first approached Brown with the idea for a film. Kent speaks about the rapport he shares with Brown and talks confidently about plans to get a shooting script under way soon.

Unbeknown to him, in the next take Brown is talking matter-of-factly about dumping him for another screenwriter who can steer the film in a more commercial, more "Hollywood" direction. It's not hard to feel a pang of sympathy for Kent, who is about to see his pet project snatched from his grasp.

The search continues for the ideal creative team that can satisfy the money men while being obedient to the facts. Next we see Brown in a coffee shop trying to woo Blue Murder director Michael Jenkins, who dryly questions whether audiences will be able to feel empathy for a bunch of bikies. "You don't want to spend 110 minutes with redneck boofheads, do you?" he asks. With all the other problems dogging the project, Brown is convinced this will not be one of them.

During his research he met members of gangs at pubs and at their homes; in time he won their trust and convinced them he was not a "wanker". To his great surprise, Brown found these men were honest, good fun, extremely loving and supportive of their fellow gang members.

In short, this smooth-faced, inner-city filmmaker found he had more in common with these rough and tough men than he expected.

The more he delved into their backgrounds, the more he understood the importance of the gang's kinship. Bandidos leader "Snotty", for example, had watched his mother commit suicide as a boy, and found the family he had always wanted in the bikie brotherhood.

Brown was fascinated by the ancient, clannish rules that govern their behaviour. "If they are attacked, they attack back without hesitation," he says. "They are very clear about that"

And without glorifying their lifestyle, Brown admits there is something about the outlaw culture of bikies that appeals to the free spirit suppressed by our risk-averse society.

The title of the documentary, The One Percenters, refers to the motto emblazoned on bikies' jackets. It has its origins in a riot by drunken hell-raisers in the town of Hollister, California, in 1947, after which the outraged American Motorcycle Association claimed the troublemakers were only "one per cent" of the motorcycle-riding population. That riot was later depicted on screen in The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando.

"In a lot of ways, it's a very wild and attractive life," Brown says. "Probably a lot more people would like to be bikies than would admit it. When a pack of Harley Davidsons rides past your house, it's exciting and scary at the same time:'

Of the bikie characters we meet in the documentary, with names such as "Bullets" and "Porky", the most impressive is Jock Ross, the fierce Glaswegian who founded the Comancheros in 1968.

Ross, who now lives at Wisemans Ferry with his wife, was one of two at the heart of the conflict. It was Ross who split the Comancheros into two chapters, taking one to Parramatta and leaving the city-based club under the command of his loyal follower "Snotty".

Snotty and some of his followers, tired of Ross's military-style leadership, formed a breakaway gang modelled on the more pleasure-seeking Bandidos in the US. They soon became known for legendary parties in their Birchgrove clubhouse.

"The Bandidos were living the Easy Rider lifestyle. But Jock didn't want to adapt to the new ways," Brown says. "It was the start of a rift, between the party boys and the soldiers."

Eventually, hostilities between the two gangs intensified to the point of a declaration of war.

The battleground, according to the rules of engagement, had to be neutral territory. And so the scene was set for the showdown at the Viking Tavern.

Jock Ross may be grey-haired now, but there is nothing benign about him. His meaty arms are covered in tattoos and every now and again his temper explodes when he disagrees with the script. Both gangs have full consultation rights on the film

When Ross makes a joke, everyone laughs along nervously, including Brown.

Finding the right actor to cast in this role will be crucial, he admits. Ideally, it would be someone larger than life, such as Russell Crowe, who happens to have a collection of Harley Davidsons.

"We haven't approached him, but it seems to me he would play a great biker," Brown says.

Director Steve Pasvolsky, an Oscar nominee, is confident the story will sell itself. "You couldn't script something this good," he enthuses. "There are chicks and bikes and petrol and guns, but underneath, a heart that's going to make the story awesome."

Brown has by now invested so much of himself in the film that he simply can't believe it will come to nothing.

But first, there's the little matter of nailing a final script and securing $10 million in funding. And beating the rival film to the big screen.

The One Percenters screens on [Australia] ABC TV on Wednesday, at 8.30pm.