Silent Hours

Bad acting, bad script, bad direction. Ghastly. I only managed to sit through about fifteen minutes of the first episode. Very hard to understand why something this bad would be released. Surely someone in authority should have pointed out that this is not up to a standard suitable for broadcast?

I did watch this to the end but really it was such a waste of time - I so wish I hadn't bothered.

When the killer is revealed, it's hard to believe.. there are so many plot holes.

I was surprised that so many women found Duval attractive .. his attitude towards women went out with the sixties! Also in need of special mention is Dervla Kirwan - her worst performance ever.

Sick, serial killer genre, which diverts the viewer from the discovery of the murderer by showing him acting in a way that implies he is not guilty - therefore it being impossible to guess. This breaks even the most basic rules of the genre and is deeply frustrating.

The plot has more holes than a colander, the acting is woodentop level, we are expected to believe that the aging lead is a Lothario who has young women desperate to be sexually abused by him at every opportunity. It is painful to watch the unfolding, incoherent nonsense. How this sort of rubbish manages to get funding is beyond me, and is an offence to filmwatchers.

But the acting was. I stuck with it as Pompey is a blast from the past for me and not much gets filmed there but FFS man, keep it in your pants. The scene towards the end, in the arched place wouldn't be out of place in scooby doo, hiding behind pillars. I can't believe how bad people's peripheral vision was, so many times stevie wonder could have seen he was being followed better than these guys.

I struggled to get through this movie; so I took it in stages interspersed by judicious fast-forwarding. Thank God for technology!

The movie itself was marred by an appalling script and wooden acting. As a "thriller" it was sub-standard, relying on nudity, a bevy of attractive women, and lots of gruesome savagery to maintain a level of interest. The story line alone was incapable of doing that!

The James Weber Brown character was appallingly shallow. Perhaps his sexual interests and his constant lighting up of mini-cigars was considered to be enough character development. It wasn't.

The focus on the Navy was sickening! I served for more than two decades, and I've never met anyone who harps on about the Navy so much as the characters in this movie!

To add insult to this childish portrayal, the Commander (Hugh Bonneville's character) was always in his uniform. Did the script writer and director think Commanders wear their uniforms when at home alone. They don't.

What's even worse is that the Commander's uniforms were always wrong! The Commander's shoulder tabs were back-to-front. (That's worth a round of drinks at the bar for a Sub-Lieutenant; no Commander would ever make such a stupid mistake.) Bonneville's winter uniform sleeve rank covers only the external part of the sleeve. I've seen airline pilots with such rank insignia, but never a real Navy officer.

The writer might have benefited from having a Navy technical adviser - but that might have resulted in large slabs of the movie being deleted!

Apart from such awful howlers, there was nothing in this movie to recommend it. Nudity and shock value don't help it over the line.