crime

Honey Don’t! review - film noir in the bright sun

Tuesday, 09 September 2025

The Coen brothers’ output has been so broad-ranging, and the duo so self-deprecating, that critics have long had difficulty getting their arms around them. Telling stories of distemper in the American heartland, with the occasional drive-by hit...

Blu-ray: The Sweeney - Series One

Tuesday, 09 September 2025

You’ll have absorbed key strands of The Sweeney‘s DNA even if you’ve never watched an episode, ITV’s groundbreaking police drama having had an impact and influence far bigger than its creators could ever have imagined. Writer Ian Kennedy Martin had...

Beating Hearts review - kiss kiss, slam slam

Thursday, 14 August 2025

Andrew Garfield was 29 when he played the teenage Spiderman and Jennifer Grey was 27 when she took on a decade-younger-than-her character called “Baby” in Dirty Dancing. So you’d think that directors and casting experts could find actors to advance...

The Kingdom review - coming of age as the body count rises

Saturday, 09 August 2025

The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree is the bitter message of The Kingdom. Director and co-writer Julien Colonna’s nerve-fraying drama about an adolescent girl’s sudden immersion in the brutal, uber-macho world of her father, a ruthless Corsican...

theartsdesk Q&A: writer and actor Mark Gatiss on 'Bookish'

Tuesday, 22 July 2025

Having played Sherlock Holmes’s politically involved older brother Mycroft in the BBC’s hit crime series Sherlock, Mark Gatiss may not be an obvious candidate to now follow in the footsteps of the famous detective. But with his new murder ...

Ballard, Prime Video review - there's something rotten in the LAPD

Tuesday, 22 July 2025

Following the success of its screen version of Michael Connelly’s veteran detective Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver, Prime Video aims to make lightning strike twice by televising Connelly’s series of Renée Ballard books. Like Bosch,...

Bookish, U&Alibi review - sleuthing and skulduggery in a bomb-battered London

Monday, 21 July 2025

As a sometime writer of Poirot, Sherlock and Christmas ghost stories, Mark Gatiss is no stranger to enigmatic crimes and bizarre occurrences set in carefully-recreated versions of the past. He revisits similar themes in Bookish, his new series about...

The Gold, Series 2, BBC One review - back on the trail of the Brink's-Mat bandits

Monday, 09 June 2025

The first series of The Gold in 2023 was received rapturously, though apparently it only told one half of the story of the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery at Heathrow airport. Now screenwriter Neil Forsyth has returned to the scene of the crime to reveal...

Dept. Q, Netflix review - Danish crime thriller finds a new home in Edinburgh

Monday, 02 June 2025

Netflix’s new detective-noir is a somewhat cosmopolitan beast. It’s written and directed by an American, Scott Frank, derived from a novel, Mercy, by the Danish crime writer Jussi Adler-Olsen, and set in Edinburgh (as well as other flavourful...

Fake, ITV1 review - be careful what you wish for

Sunday, 04 May 2025

The art of the conman is persuading their victim to fool themselves, which is the premise that lies at the core of this Australian drama series. Adapted by screenwriter Anya Beyersdorf from the eponymous memoir by Stephanie Wood, Fake is the...

MobLand, Paramount+ review - more guns, goons and gangsters from Guy Ritchie

Friday, 04 April 2025

A year ago Guy Ritchie brought us the Netflix series The Gentlemen, and now here he is on Paramount+ with his latest romp through the verdant pastures of criminal low-lifery. It seems that top thespians are queueing up to bag a slice of Ritchie-...

The Alto Knights review - double dose of De Niro doesn't hit the spot

Friday, 21 March 2025

The power struggle between New York crime bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello is one of the foundational stories of the American Mafia, though perhaps asking Robert De Niro to play both of them was a trifle over-optimistic. With his track record...

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