DaViD´82

An extract from a Danish gem in eight parts putting its money on melodrama instead of Scandi raw and rainy stylization. Which, in view of the theme, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad, but here we get those soundless, slow-motion shots with pretentiously touching/dramatic music or shooting against the setting sun so often that it gets tedious. The greatest difficulty is the concept itself; since they bet everything on the down-to-earth, psychological aspect which, instead of crime and its investigation (which is good, because you can deduce “who and why" beyond all doubt very early on and in fact the crime aspect of the series simply doesn’t work), focuses on the impact on the family of the bereaved and their surroundings and the consequences of the tragedy and coming to terms with it within the community, it is essential to have excellently written, three-dimensional characters who can stand up to being put under the microscope. And it has to be excellently cast. And although a few characters fit the bill, not all of them do by a long chalk. And those who come out of this the best remain merely characters; not one of them is a “alive" as the Birk Larsens in the Danish original mentioned above. The strongest aspect of the series is the genius loci of the village of Broadchurch.

Who could have guessed that an adaptation of Henry V would suffer from a lack internal tension? Who knew that the series, which was adorned by its cast, would be betrayed by the actors in their new roles? Definitely not me. Paterson Joseph's amateurish bugging out of his eyes as York is as ridiculous as can be, but even so, his amateurism is completely overshadowed by the tragedy of Edward Akrout's performance; there are no decent words to describe it. One might understand it in the early days of the silent film era, but to play a serious dramatic role in the twenty-first century, stylizing himself into a powder-pale villain who constantly casts hateful, glaring glances - that’s really too much. To crown it all, Richard Griffiths’ absolute lack of diction and uncertain speech completely failed to convey his lines. If he were evaluated at school he would have received a disapproving "you didn't please me, nor will I please you" from his teacher. In this mess it is not surprising that the routine direction ruins even such potentially rewarding scenes, such as the St. Christopher's Day speech before the Battle of Agincourt, and renders them unnoticeable. In addition, the appalling, pathetic-sounding soft trumpets often play as a musical undertone, leaving you waiting as the English standard slowly falls to the ground... The result is not bad, the original is too good for that, and the actors (led by those from last time) are too good, but here the only scenes that really work are those of studying and speaking amorously in the Frenglish of the time.

I quite understand why both parts of Henry IV are so often performed as a single shortened play, because why have two very good parts when you can have one phenomenal one, right? In any case, as the action somewhat stagnates in part two, the development of the characters culminates (commensurate with the acting performances). The exception is Tom Hiddleston, who "only" jumps from the mode of charismatic dandy to the mode of uncompromising charismatic statesman and nothing in between, even though the material gives him enough space to do so. But do not be mistaken, in both of these modes he is insurmountable.

The only problem with this otherwise very successful adaptation stems from the original; even there, a sharp conversational comedy about the debauched life of a young dandy and a prince in one person somewhat clashes with the dramatic approach to the historical problems of his father, Henry. One cannot reproach the cast and much less their performances. Apart from the enthusiasm for the rewarding central trio "Hal – Henry IV – Falstaff", I was particularly thrilled by Joe Armstrong in the role of Henry "Hotspur" Percy. It is a pity that they have recast the roles already cast in “Part 1"; it could have been even a bit more interesting.

I always found Richard II rather overshadowed by the rest of Shakespeare’s works; not for its atypical, flowery versed form, but purely because the main character always seemed perhaps the least interesting of all of Shakespeare’s major main protagonists. Which is a direct contrast to Bollingbroke, who, despite having much less space and fewer lines, is in my eyes a far more fascinating and unbalanced character. In any case, Whishaw’s bold “effeminate" interpretation of Richard II considerably redeemed this character for me. When you realize just how much his performance is bound by absolute faithfulness to the original text, then he definitely deserves nothing less than the word “respect". In any case, this changes nothing about the fact that for me, Bollingbroke is the main protagonist in Richard II and the person who acts him is the stumbling block for this adaptation. However much I like Rory Kinnear (and he certainly isn’t a bad actor), in this Milky Way of stars, you have to admit he plays second fiddle. Which is a crying shame even despite the premature climax being the confrontation between John of Gaunt and Richard.

A crime movie which at first glance seems commonplace and uninventive - one of those “emancipated female vs. perverted maniac male" thrillers that you’ve seen a hundred times already. But the seemingly commonplace nature of it dissipates in the first few minutes. This turns out to be a worrying series. Very worrying. It doesn’t try to impress with (explicit) violence not does it count on genre props, but goes at it old-school style, through the meticulously built atmosphere of a bleak Belfast. It’s slow, taciturn with long, almost hypnotic scenes where nothing seems to happen. But under the surface it bubbles away, because the actions of the “main pervert" are chillingly realistic. More than in any other movie, the worrying and unpleasant “guy next door" feeling seems terribly real. | S1: 4/5 | S2: 4/5 |

Unconvincing from the very first scene. A mini juicer in the car that doesn’t need a thorough wash to stop the pulp rotting in it? You can tell that the authors have never come up against a dried juice filter. And it’s also the worst caliber of propaganda. You know how it is... The most militant anti-smokers are former smokers and the most adamant propagators of healthy eating are formerly obese eating machines who, one day, saw their mistake and now have the feeling (in fact it’s a mission) that they have to save the world. Which they do by talking to one American after another and, through Jehovah's Witness type interrogation, they try to convince people to take the path leading toward vegetables on your plate. That’s right, instead of faith, Jesus Christ and eternal salvation, he we hear words praising healthy food, long life and health, whereby creating the impression of spreading awareness. Unfortunately, the result does more harm than good for healthy lifestyle, working only on an uninventive “tabloid press" level of if you eat like a pig, you might die early, oink, oink, oink!

Granted, Letts's source material comes across as nothing more than an unsophisticated theatrical Southern variation on McDonagh's productions, but with all the unadulterated fun, who cares, right?

An animated comic book which, despite its fruitful and sturdy theme (a mutation drug), limps rather on the story side; in fact it develops nowhere. But you must admit it’s stylish. It’s a classic Whedon; tongue-in-cheek, full of keen-edged, self-denigrating dialogs and wisecracks, but fully aware of its roots. And that’s quite a lot for a “popcorn" snack.

Bearing in mind the BBC’s possibilities, this is “just" regular filmmaking craft, but an outstanding genre movie at the same time. In regular crime series, internal affairs/units uncovering corruption are often presented as hotbeds of corruption themselves or bureaucratic getting in the way of honest cops. But not here. It’s not just about trying to catch out a corrupt cop, but trying to catch a cop who knows the loopholes of the system inside out and he bends it to suit himself, to get to the best cases that would take him to the top, trampling over everybody else who is in the way. They don’t want necessarily to destroy him, just to clip his wings a little, but... But that doesn’t work if they have someone Lennie James standing against them (the first impression that he was just a second-rate alternative “because Idris Elba was busy" is immediately proven wrong), because excels in the role of a man who has to lead a team, solve cases, deal with his own personal, unenviable crisis and still keep one step ahead of internal affairs. His “Lutheran multi-tasking" parts that are what’s best about this series. The problem is that he is only given the same amount of space as a disillusioned new guy who wants to catch him out and an ambitious female undercover detective who operates in his team. And not that these two storylines were bad, they just aren’t as good. Too bad about the obvious final twist in the ambulance, but if nothing else, at least it gives some interesting options for season two. Also the initial deus ex machina with the accident is taking things a little too far, but otherwise it is a nice, down-to-earth and even the actions and the behavior of the characters was, (not just) for this genre, convincing. It’s refreshing to see that season two doesn’t simply regurgitate season one slightly differently and that it takes its own path where (despite the absence of the main powerhouse of season one) it loses none of its quality. What isn’t refreshing is that again we get deus ex machines where for incomprehensible reasons the authors felt the need to have all of the main protagonists somehow personally involved in the case. The City where this is set has a population exceeding ten million, but in this its like no more than ten live there. This rather takes away from the convincing down-to-earthness of season one, but even so, it has sufficient quality and suspense to make it more than just a regular crime series. Season three then completely breaks free from the chains of hitherto credibility, but the result is an incredibly high-octane and twist-full version of Internal Affairs which works (much better than anyone might expect) with the rather out-of-place seeming conspiring loose ends of the preceding seasons. I could criticize much about this, but, like it or not, I must admit that in some places I my knuckles turned white from tension (especially during the interrogation scenes), so it would be a bit hypocritical of me. In any case, for season four I personally would return to the original waters of everyday internal affairs unit routine. It really seemed for a long while that season four had taken a step back and that it turned into an affair full of twists where the burden of circumstances draws the characters into a spiral of wrong decisions. However, the final episode returns it to the “conspiracy" level. Not bad at all, but maybe a little unnecessary. It would have worked without that too. In any case, the tempo and suspense are right up there again, Thandie Newton and Lee Ingleby are brilliantly cast and so the greatest drawback is that this time there are notably fewer of the piece de resistance of this series, the interrogations. This time round there are only two interrogations that last the fundamental ten minutes. And that is unforgivable. | S1: 4/5 | S2: 4/5 | S3: 5/5 | S4: 4/5 | S5: 3/5 |