James Weir recaps Warnie: episode 2 of the Shane Warne telemovie

The Shane Warne movie has continued its celebration of a legend by … airing all his sex scandals? James Weir recaps the awkward re-enactment.

The Warnie telemovie was a telesnoozie.

Channel 9 continues to honour Shane Warne’s memory by book-ending the second instalment of its telemovie about the late spin king with a dramatic re-enactment of his sex romp with British model Liz Hurley in a hotel room.

The celebration of a legend’s life doesn’t stop there.

This Liz Hurley fling is just one of several sexploits that form the plot of Monday’s second and final episode — a deeply affecting cinematic masterpiece that Margaret and David might describe as raw, urgent and necessary.

JAMES WEIR RECAPS:Warnie episode one

The episode opens in a dark and tacky hotel room. A man with bleached hair enthusiastically grinds against a raven-haired beauty. It’s supposed to be 2010 but everything in the scene looks like it belongs in the ‘80s.

“I can’t believe this. It’s gotta be a dream,” Warnie gushes before slowly whispering the name of the woman he’s mesmerised by. “Liz Hurley”.

Their passionate romping gives new meaning to Warnie’s trademark bowling technique, The Flipper.

Austin Powers has nothin’ on Warnie.

We see the pair getting steamy all around London. In a shadowy alleyway, Warnie wraps his lips over Liz’s face like it’s a schooner of beer. It’s around now Warnie breaks the fourth wall and rouses on the gossip-hungry vultures — an attempt by the writers to shrug off their own salaciousness by raising weak existential questions about us, the general public who are just trying to enjoy our Monday evening.

“Hang on, hang on! Stop! Stop! You people, it’s all you wanna know about — the sex, the scandal. I mean seriously! Can we just talk about cricket? Ploise!”

Um, you brought it up?

Liz must feel so honoured to be featured in this.

What follows over the next 90 minutes is a partial stocktake of Warnie’s sex scandals. We’ve got the 22-year-old nurse who told a tabloid the spin king called her up on the phone for a bit of dirty talk. Then there’s a chick who sells her story to a newspaper for $10,000 after sleeping with Warnie in a random London share house.

Warnie’s wife Simone arrives in town with the kids just as the news of one of these flings breaks. It’s the final straw for her. They split. Warnie gets through it the only way he knows how – by drinking vodka from the bottle and crying to a young Michael Clarke, whose frosted tips are recreated by the show’s costume designer with startling accuracy.

Lookin’ hot, Pup.

Suddenly, we find ourselves back in 2010, where the writers explore the origin story of Warnie and Liz Hurley’s courtship.

“I was never much into horse racing. But for some reason, I said yes to a VIP ticket at Goodwood in England,” the Warnie voiceover explains, with the same flat delivery of a third grade student reading an essay to the class about what they did on the summer holidays. “And lucky I did because that’s where I met … Elizabeth.”

The iconic paparazzi shots of their first encounter have appeared in magazines around the world. Again, the costume department works overtime to recreate the moment.

This is Australia’s version of prestige television.

“Shane Warne. Oh my god. I’m starstruck,” Liz says, in her clipped British accent.

Shane grunts. “I think that’s my line.”

“Hello. I’m … Elizabeth”

Shane nods and stops short of licking his lips. “Yeah. I know.”

That’s when we cut to the hotel sex romp that featured at the beginning of the episode.

Now, remember… a sex scene produced by the folks over at Channel 9 is never going to be desirable. But this one’s made worse with the Warnie narration.

“At this stage, I was kind of … sort of … how do I put this … Back with Simone?”

According to the biopic, Liz won out over Simone. We cut to her and Shane hanging by the pool and reading stories about themselves in tabloid magazines. The only thing to take away from this scene is that the prop department must’ve been operating with an extremely tight budget. Just look at the cover of the fictional Top View Daily.

Note the punctuation error.

Like this telemovie, the Liz fling fizzles out.

“We seem to have hit a wall,” she tells him.

We know how she feels.

Cut to a family BBQ with Simone and the kids. Warnie can’t get the Weber started. His repeated attempts result in no spark.

A BBQ that fails to light up? It’s beautiful symbolism for this entire TV event.

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