The Shadow Line

This extraordinary TV series has all the intensity of David Lynch's MULLHOLLAND DRIVE (2001, see my review), and director/writer/producer Hugo Blick with this effort has really entered the top ranks of mood-makers. From the very first shot, looking down on a deserted car at night from a high crane, as two policemen gingerly approach it to look for a corpse, we know we are in deep and moody noir territory. The lighting, shots, composition, editing, pace, are all done in an elegiac mode. The acting is intense, the camera dwelling on the faces, many of them ravaged, is intense, the emotions are intense, we are in deep purple mood as a variety of horrible drug dealers struggle against The Unknown, and get killed one after another. The entire series has a kind of metaphysical feel, as if conceived by Jean-Paul Sartre as a struggle against Le Néant ('Nothingness'). Our hero, the lead policeman, suffers from amnesia and cannot remember key things which relate to the case he is supposed to be investigating. He is not sure whether he was once a corrupt cop or not, and no one will tell him. But he does find a briefcase stuffed with £250,000 in cash concealed in his bedroom. He just can't remember how he got it, and dreads finding out. He is repeatedly told that the only reason he is still alive is that he cannot remember certain things. He has a nagging ex-mistress who constantly pressures him by shouting: 'When are you going to tell her?', referring to their child which his wife does not know exists, even though the relationship itself with the mistress is over and has dissolved in recriminations and resentments. This series features an excellent but very scary performance by Rafe Small, son of the distinguished actor Timothy Small, as a young psychopathic criminal. Small has mastered the 'Tony Blair swivelling, insane eyes' motif perfectly, and may have modelled himself on that famed Conqueror of the WMDs which never existed, except for one thing, that he speaks very quietly and low key. All the cast in this series are excellent. The lead is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, a name which requires a certain amount of concentration not only to pronounce but to remember. It does not trip as lightly off the tongue as Clark Gable, for instance. However, despite the difficulty of coping with his name, we can only respect his intense, concerned, and worried performance as the good-natured cop struggling to overcome amnesia while solving murders which just keep on happening and which all appear to be linked somehow, but no one knows how or why. The parallel story of his complicated personal life adds to the strain the poor man is under. The spookiest and most menacing, and perhaps the most brilliant, of all the performances in this remarkable series is by Stephen Rea. He is just over the horizon of visibility, where police, security, corruption, drugs, criminals, and mania all lurk. He embodies all the unknown horrors of what threatens us, and he does it with such calm and unperturbed perfection. When he kills, it is with the same unconcern with which one switches off a car ignition after parking. We discover that he is motivated by a control mania so extreme that it reminds us of all our least favourite politicians. What is it about the times in which we live which breeds so many maniacs who wish for total control of everyone and everything? And how is it that they get elected and appointed? Stephen Rea's eerie performance stands for all that, for all the unspoken, slow, relentless creep of control over everything being exerted by insane persons at the top. And he cannot be stopped, any more than the Terminator can, or than the World State, the European Union, the Patriot Act (which no one in Congress read before passing it), the public bailout of Goldman Sachs by the former head of Goldman Sachs (Hank Paulson, proud possessor of another set of 'Blair-style' swivelling, insane eyes), the controls which prevent us from taking hand cream onto planes, the closing of children's playgrounds because they might fall and bruise their knees, the monitoring of everything and everyone, the many Mount Everests of unread email intercepts and unheard phone taps, which fill all the world's demented security agencies, where total control and total knowledge amount to … what? A vacuum of futility. Somehow Blick manages to convey all of these background fears of our time, as well as the moral emptiness of those causing them, by profound and sustained innuendo throughout this series. There is always 'them'. Who are 'they'? No one knows. Even 'they' do not know. But whoever 'they' are, there is always evil, there is always corruption, there are always drugs, there are always suitcases stuffed with cash, there are corpses discovered in strange positions, there is betrayal, as well as betrayal of the betrayers, and finally there is the Nothingness. It is the Nothingness which lies behind all of this. That is who is to blame. And that is the true secret of what is on the other side of 'the shadow line'.

The closest thing the Brits will have to an answer for The Wire. The Shadow Line is a stunning exploration of the line that men walk between morality, faith, justice and identity. The writers keep you in a constant state of mystery, unsure of who these people are and what side they ultimately lie on. The lines are blurred up until the end and everyone involved makes it a gripping and intense journey through this dangerous world. There are so many scenes that had my legs shaking in paranoia, dying to see how things were going to turn out. They somehow manage to make the quietest moments the most epic; there's a scene at the beginning of the fifth episode (that ends up lasting almost half an hour) that felt very reminiscent of that epic feeling during the Omar/Brother Mouzone meetup in The Wire.

Of course, the talented cast is an essential piece of crafting this brilliant work; Chiwetel Ejiofor is the perfect protagonist, a do-gooder with a potentially dark past who explodes in the final few episodes. Christopher Eccleston excels as the "good guy" on the bad side, a very Stringer Bell-esque character who takes a business approach to everything. The supporting cast all make huge impressions as well; Rafe Spall and Stephen Rea both create two of the most terrifying villains in recent memory. Spall the livewire with his finger always on the trigger and Rea the calm and mysterious shadow figure hiding behind the door. They take two entirely different approaches and each one is marvelous beyond words.

It's pretty hard for a mini-series to end up ranking among the best complete series for me, but this one is high up there. It's without a doubt the best mini-series I've ever seen and at the end I was definitely just desperate for even more. The final episode ends up having to rely a little too much on exposition and there are a few too many twists, but it's all necessary to wrap up the story and leave the viewer satisfied with answers. The Shadow Line is the rare series that will have you constantly guessing and on the edge of your seat. Intensity beyond intensity, a really powerful masterwork.

Well the series finally came to its grim conclusion and I have to say I didn't see this ending coming. I read other reviews comparing this series to The Edge of Darkness (the series not the film), and while I get the comparison, that did have light relief in the Joe Don Baker and Charles Kay characters.

The shadow line has no such lightness or let up, and the nearest I can get to compare my feeling at the end is the 'Get Carter' (Michael Caine) film.

A fine cast does this justice and an excellent script made Thursday evenings a night in! A huge well done to the writer and all the actors who made this so memorable. If you remember Stephen Rea as Carter Brandon in 'I didn't know you cared' (one of the best comedy series ever IMHO), who would have imagined he would progress to being one of the most memorable screen villains ever. Bravo!

Chiwetel was brilliant! He's never lightweight! This is a mixture of Mamet and David Simon (Homicide: Life On The Street) with an American '70's movie vibe (I'm thinking PARALAX VIEW) thrown in. It's all about how the supposed law & order top brass are more corrupt than their criminal counterparts. I liked the cynical view that emerged which seems to indicate that there's really no place for a moral or compassionate person in the cutthroat world of modern life. All those that prevail ultimately have sold out their moral codes in favor of greed and corruption. Kind of downbeat but beautifully executed. Stephen Rea is one of the most chilling villains to come along in a long time. Christopher Eccelston's character was the most sympathetic and his arc is heartbreaking. Of course this is heightened reality but that's the point.

Just caught up with the first episode of The Shadow Line.

1. Any series that nicks a title off Joseph Conrad is at least ASPIRING to greatness.

2. Chiwetel Ejiofor's a BAMF. With immaculate vowels. Match that with Christopher "Lots of planets have a North" Ecclestone and it's made of win from the start 3. This series is almost into Edge Of Darkness goodness already. No. Not the Mel Gibson version.

In all honesty, this is what the BBC was made to do; original drama that wouldn't have been made by any other channel in the UK. Perhaps it's all going to implode into crapness, but so far I really don't see how it can. OK, posting reviews when I'm shedded's probably a bad idea, but this, so far, is immaculate.