Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1983

(The following review is a follow-up on the reviews written for Julian Jarrold's "Red Riding: 1974" and James Marsh's "Red Riding: 1980"; for further info on the Red Riding trilogy and content related to the series' continuity, read the other reviews before this one.) The excellent Red Riding trilogy has finally come to a close...and it went out with quite a bang! Anand Tucker helms the final film, "Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1983" and does a pitch-perfect job of joining the two previous films, solving up most of the enigmas that had been ignored, and closing the circle. Tucker is a master at his characters' catharses and at carefully observing and commenting on the infinitely heartbreaking human characteristics of revenge, redemption and atonement. Tucker concludes Jarrold and Marsh's films in this way: he extracts Jarrold's poignancy from "1974" and Marsh's intelligence from "1980", mixes them and adds his own masterful touch while tying the loose ends of each film's plots. The result is, as I've said before, an excellent closure to this harrowing series and a very satisfying finale.

The film returns to 1974, and the opening scene shows us the corrupt and darkly evil group of villains we've already come to know assembled in a country estate, including Harold Angus (Jim Carter), the seedy police superintendent, and Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey), the mysteriously cryptic and detached crime investigator. The child murders we saw in the first film are only just being discovered by the police, and their shady dealings with John Dawson (Sean Bean) are beginning to be discussed. Then the film shifts us to the year 1983, where attorney John Piggott (Mark Addy) is being commissioned to appeal for the killer of the three girls, whom his family believes to be innocent (and secretly, so do we).

The film dangerously shifts between 1974 and 1983 without letting the viewer know. At first we're confused to see so many characters who're supposed to be dead already involved in present-time events, but as the film goes along it is all explained. Tucker is interested not in the chronology of events or making sense out of the twisted plot...after all, what sense can ever be extracted from such base crime and corruption? We eventually manage to sort the plot out, and by then we just KNOW that no matter whether the events make sense or not, the depravity and evil behind it all can never explain itself to our consciences. Tucker digs deeper into the Yorkshire murders than Jarrold and Marsh could because he can play with all of the characters from the previous two films, giving us everybody's side of the story, everyone's point of view and every person's true face (as opposed to the mask they've been painting all along). And the new character (Piggott, the attorney) who we've only come to know is such an ambiguous, flawed and relatable character that (even through his weak points) he becomes the most human character of the film. Piggott leads the investigation taking place in 1983 and Maurice Jobson leads a covert investigation back in 1974 parallel to Eddy Dunford's (but obviously laden with a corrupt agenda).

Once again, the film builds a steady tension that reaches unbearable heights as each minute passes on, as as the answers to all the questions we had are revealed to us, we can't help but lift our hands to our mouths and stare open-eyed at the horror behind the truth. The first two films dealt with one person trying to expose the guilty murderers and crime lords; this film is about the murderers and members of the Force seeing how they can cover up their footprints, how they can redeem themselves from tainted consciences, and how they can go on living while internal disagreements arise. And Anand Tucker, who has shown us with films like "Hilary and Jackie" and "Shopgirl" that he's a master at exploiting guilt and internal conflict, makes the most of his characters and blows them up from the inside out.

I can't say anything about the ending without spoiling everything for you, but I WILL say that the series couldn't have ended better. I saw these films on DVD, in the comfort of my bedroom, and as soon as "1983" was over I felt like jumping to my feet and clapping my heart out. I'll never tire of repeating this: I am amazed! Overwhelmed, really.

I've recently heard that Ridley Scott's been taken into consideration to direct an American film which joins this trilogy into one full-length feature. That is just ridiculous. These three films put together amount to over FOUR hours and a half, and not a minute is wasted in any of them. Trying to summarizing this will take out the POINT of it all, and is sure to be a flop (after all, there's a reason why the British made this into a trilogy). I seriously recommend you see this before the USA releases its own reduced version. This is as good as trilogies are ever gonna get. Rating: 3 stars and a half out of 4!

The Red Riding trilogy is not something one would normally watch for comedy style entertainment. The underworld criminal corruption and fascist bastard Yorkshire police encountered so far in the first two parts are just touching the surface of this crime drama; beneath this is sick, violent and twisted evil. And the final episode lays it bare.

I have to say the performance by the cast is extraordinary. Sure, you can say that actors like Sean Bean and Paddy Considine do possess a degree of cool and that they easily endow upon their character roles. However, in the final part, something happens which really surprised me and gave me the creeps.

The setting for this trilogy: 1970-1980's Britain, has touched a nostalgic nerve in me - a 40 year old Brit. However, my memories of Gypsies, vandalised cars on the street and the grassy wilderness that carries on from the back garden are all fond memories of my childhood. Red Riding brought me back into these days and these places, and introduced a host of beastly horrors and brutal realities of which - until now - I was blithely unaware.

Finally, I guess that in conclusion, I was specially targeted by this. But it may just be well-written, expertly researched, quintessentially British, supported by a great cast and neatly photographed. And the impact that was intended for the end - certainly worked on me.

In flashbacks, Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey), Bill Molloy, Bob Craven, Harold Angus, Dick Alderman, Jim Prentice, and others from the police are taking control of the vice trade in the north. They invest in the shopping mall being built by John Dawson (Sean Bean). It's 1983. Ten year old Hazel Atkins goes missing and Jobson wonders if they got the right man Michael Myshkin for the earlier dead girls. He is directed to medium Mandy Wymer (Saskia Reeves) who claims that there is a Wolf, a Rat, and a Pig. The Swan is dead and under the beautiful carpets. John Piggott (Mark Addy) is a local boy turned defense lawyer. He's asked to appeal Myshkin's conviction. His father was known as Arthur the Pig. Jobson known as the Owl arrests Myshkin's friend Leonard Cole. Piggott tries to sign him up as his lawyer but he is found hung in jail. Meanwhile, BJ is released from prison and Martin Laws is the local reverend.

This third installment returns the story back to the kidnapped girls. It is sorely needed after taking a side trip in the second installment. I can do without the medium. Her revelations could easily be given to Myshkin. It is a nice wrap up although this is something that needs to be binged. A lot of the first movie needs to be remembered to fully appreciate this movie. David Morrissey and Mark Addy deliver emotionally conflicted characters. The final reveal could be more twisty. It is mostly about waiting to find the various animals.

The seemingly untouchable, corrupt West Yorkshire police, and the true evil mastermind behind the child abductions and murders of the last 14 years, can't resist doing it again. "Red Riding: 1983" sets the story that another young girl has vanished from the same area, nine years earlier. "Red Riding: 1983" cycles back to the terrible events set in motion in "Red Riding: 1974", when a series of young girls went missing and a mentally retarded man, Michael Myshkin (Mays), was wrongfully convicted for the crime. Detective Inspector Maurice Jobson (Morrissey), a regular if mostly background character in the first two films, becomes our first focal point here as a man deeply wrecked by his complicity in the Yorkshire Constabulary's general lawlessness.

In 1983, another young girl disappears, and Jobson decides to do some actual police work--and reopening several old cases his colleagues would prefer to keep closed--and sniffing around the likes of series constant Rev. Lawes (Mullan, with the omniscience and eerie stillness of a very dark angel). Simultaneously, in the trilogy's first dual narrative, another lead emerges in the form of John Piggott (Addy), a sad-sack solicitor and Yorkshire native who reluctantly agrees to file an appeal on behalf of Myshkin. Piggott marks the trilogy's most uncomplicated hero.

It may come as a surprise that the ending of "Red Riding: 1983" adds a dose of hope to its brackish main course. "Red Riding: 1983" provides a fitting conclusion to a whole that is, in some ways, greater than the sum of its parts." Red Riding" is an effective crime thriller, but it's an even more striking drama about the dark parts of the human soul and man's capacity for inhumanity. The third movie represents the middle ground between the promising-but-uneven" Red Riding: 1974" and its sequel, the shocking and haunting "Red Riding:1980." This time around, there's less in the way of a stand- alone narrative as screenwriter Tony Grisoni, working from the novel by David Peace, stitches closed various plot holes. The finale doesn't answer all of our question, but it provides a sense of closure and clears up a number of nagging questions left over from the previous two segments.

What we can take away from all of this is not just an investigation into a series of child murders. This is an in-depth character study of three (or four) main protagonists--as they slowly unfold a ring of corruption surrounding an era of a very specific locale of the UK. As things get "hairy" within each of our main characters' worlds, rather than dig deeper into the case, they instead spend three quarters of the running time of each film digging deeper into their own psych--and begin to like what they see in themselves less and less.

And finally the loose ends are tied up in the last part of the acclaimed RED RIDING trilogy. This time around, a low-rent lawyer and a cop with a conscience combine forces to expose the child killer who has been eluding police from the very beginning.

I'm a sucker for a happy ending and this film gives us one - well, sort of one. I found the story punchier and although events become even darker - and more shocking, if that's even possible - there is hope, finally, in the full-on powerhouse ending.

What a coup in casting Mark Addy as the sympathetic lead (he's usually typecast as lovable rolly-polly types since THE FULL MONTY back in the day)! David Morrissey is given a chance to shine, too, putting memories of BASIC INSTINCT 2 into the distant past. The series definitely ends on a high and it's nice to have some closure after everything that happened.