Wally Oppal, Pickton inquiry chief gets role in upcoming Uwe Boll movie

Wally Oppal has been a pillar of the B.C. legal establishment for more than three decades.

A former B.C. Supreme Court and Appeal Court justice, the first Indo-Canadian appointed to a superior court bench, Oppal headed a ground-breaking inquiry into B.C. policing in the 1980s and served a term as attorney general of the province.

He now heads the high-profile Missing Women Commission inquiry spurred by the botched investigation into serial killer Robert Pickton.

But the latest addition to Oppal's resume, which includes a professional basketball tryout as a young man, is raising eyebrows.

Oppal, who's wrapping the inquiry's hearings, found time to take a cameo role in a movie being filmed in Vancouver.

Oppal plays a shooting victim in The Bailout, about an average man who lost everything in the 2008 financial meltdown and exacts revenge by systematically killing investment bankers, the National Post reports.

It's being helmed by Uwe Boll, the German director best known for blood-soaked offerings such as Postal, BloodRayne and House of the Dead.

Oppal plays one of the investment types being targeted by the movie's hero, played by Dominic Purcell.

Oppal, who is friends with one of the producers, told The Canadian Press he filmed his part over last weekend, delivering a few lines before being gunned down. A pack of fake blood explodes through his shirt and he falls to ground.

"It was really an education for me, it was impressive as to how films were made," Oppal said in an interview with The Canadian Press outside the Pickton inquiry Thursday.

"There's a hundred people in the room and all the defined roles they have — it was a real eye-opener for me, so I quite enjoyed it."

Oppal said he had to rehearse his lines, then practise falling, protected by elbow and knee pads. He nailed the scene in one take.

But other participants in the Missing Women inquiry aren't as pleased with one-take Wally's Hollywood sideline.

Ernie Crey, whose sister Dawn was one of Pickton's victims, told the Post he was surprised Oppal would get involved in the movie shoot while working on a tight deadline to finish his work with the inquiry.

"While he does have a right to a private life, he should have taken a pass on his debut as a film star," said Crey.

Robert Holmes, president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said Oppal has a long record of public service but also questioned his decision.

"I don't think anyone can question his integrity and at this point if he wants to go off and be a movie actor that's his choice," he said.

"The problem is, the optics of this right now are problematic because the public I think ... has at the very least assumed that this inquiry is being dealt with on a full-time basis."

Oppal, who underwent prostate cancer treatment in 2007, is unapologetic.

"I don't think there's anything inappropriate about it," he said Thursday, insisting he's not taking anything away from his work on the inquiry.

"I am entitled to have a life. I am working day and night on this (inquiry) and there is hardly a day I don't go into the office."

The inquiry has been controversial from the beginning.

First Nations groups withdrew because the provincial government refused to fund legal representation, then the lawyer appointed to represent aboriginal interests (many of Pickton's victims were aboriginal women) quit.

Female inquiry staffers have also resigned, alleging they were sexually harassed, something Oppal said came as a surprise to him.

Victims' relatives have also complained the hearings have focused too much on police procedures and not enough on the social climate that allowed them to ignore for years signs a serial killer was preying on impoverished, drug-addicted prostitutes in Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside.