crime
In the Dark, BBC One review - missing girls mystery promises hidden depthsWednesday, 12 July 2017
Detective Inspector Helen Weeks (MyAnna Buring), having finally cornered a skanky drug-dealer/benefit cheat in a blind alley – and stopped an eager PC from Tasering the woman – is punched in the stomach for her pains. How’s that for a hard-hitting... Read more... |
Michael Connelly: The Late Show review - mesmerising and believable charactersSunday, 09 July 2017
Readers have been committed fans since 1992, when the sometime crime reporter Michael Connelly turned novelist. Connelly’s best-known sequence has featured, over three decades now, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) detective Hieronymus Bosch... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Stormy MondayFriday, 07 July 2017
Using Hollywood stars to prop up British crime thrillers is an ignoble tradition. Guy Ritchie’s Snatch misused Brad Pitt, but John Wayne’s execrable Brannigan is probably the worst example. So one’s hopes aren’t high for Stormy Monday, a 1987 noir... Read more... |
Get Even review – good idea ineptly handledMonday, 03 July 2017
Appreciating art involves applauding experimentation, but when you break new ground you don’t always land on your feet. Case in point: Get Even, a game that tells an old story in a new way, and at times, pays a high price for attempting innovation.... Read more... |
Baby Driver review - thrill-ride runs out of roadThursday, 29 June 2017
Baby drives like a deranged bullet. Edgar Wright’s “diegetic action-musical” choreographs the bank-heist getaways of angel-faced Baby (Ansel Elgort) as physically exhilarating pure cinema, a rush that’s rare. It’s also pure, adrenalin-pumping rock’n... Read more... |
Murdered For Being Different, BBC Three review - unbearable but unmissableMonday, 19 June 2017
Heaven alone knows we've pressing anxieties enough to preoccupy us, but if you have the emotional bandwidth to accommodate more, the iPlayer can oblige. Available now on BBC Three is the latest in what now becomes a trilogy of heartrending dramas... Read more... |
Riviera, Sky Atlantic review - codswallop on the Côte d'AzurFriday, 16 June 2017
W Somerset Maugham, who knew a thing or two about the dark side, summed up the Riviera as “a sunny place for shady people”. On the evidence of this first episode, Riviera is a funny place for shitty people.The first few minutes flung us... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Spotlight On a MurdererFriday, 02 June 2017
After Eyes Without a Face, came this. Georges Franju is largely known for the grisly, surreal horror of his second feature, about a mad surgeon grafting stalked young women’s faces onto his disfigured wife. His all but forgotten follow-up, Spotlight... Read more... |
Born to Kill finale, Channel 4 review – a full-blown psychotic nightmareFriday, 12 May 2017
Was it just a coincidence that budding serial killer Sam attended Ripley Heath High? Probably not. Born to Kill, written by Tracey Malone and Kate Ashfield, was keenly aware that it followed in the bloody footsteps of both real sociopaths such as... Read more... |
Line of Duty, Series 4 finale review - 'great acting, great writing'Monday, 01 May 2017
Cop a load of that, then. Hana Reznikova is serving time for triple murder. Ted Hastings is on permanent gardening leave. The Huntleys have renewed their wedding vows on a family trip to Disneyworld. Just kidding. This is a Reg 15 alert to advise... Read more... |
Sunday Book: Donna Leon - Earthly RemainsSunday, 23 April 2017
It’s 25 years this year since Donna Leon introduced us to Commissario Guido Brunetti, a man who in his way has done as much for Venice as Byron and Ruskin or, in our own time, Francesco da Mosto, like Brunetti a glamorous figure absorbed by the... Read more... |
Broadchurch review - the final reckoningTuesday, 18 April 2017
“Take your pick. Who shall we talk to first?” DI Alec Hardy (David Tennant) and DS Miller (Olivia Colman) had their three prime suspects waiting for them in custody. The fact that none of them proved to be the guilty party was what was wrong not... Read more... |
