paul2001sw-1

It's hard to know what to make of 'White Man Walking'. Of course, protest marches have a long tradition in the civil rights struggle, but these are a demonstration of collective power. If a random stranger with a camera asked me to walk with them, even for a cause I believed in, I would probably say 'no'. And is it really a surprise that 'Black Lives Matter' is not universally popular in the American south? Nonetheless, the degree of ignorance and racism, and the willingness to threaten violence, that are exposed here are nonetheless shocking, especially as a white man is the object. Could a black man have done this and even made it out alive? The question sounds melodramatic, but the number of guns on visible display certainly raises the question. So somehow this film is both a one-man stunt, and yet also genuinely worrying. It was made during the 2020 U. S. election campaign; four years on, it's hard to say we're in a better place.

Setting a murder mystery in the style of Agatha Christie in the production of 'The Mousetrap', her famously long-running theatre play, sounds like a fun idea, especially as the original cast included famous actor Richard Attenborough. But sadly, 'See How They Run' mostly misses the mark. Christie's work, even in book form, is inherently 'stagey', and any modern adaptation needs to balance self-consciously indulging the form, giving the audience what they expect, and covering it with some veneer of realism. But this film makes no concessions to realism whatsoever, presenting itself as it was one of the most comically overdone of Christie's works. For this to work, it would need to be very funny, and sadly it isn't. Sam Rockwell's drunken, lugubrious inspector, for example, is a decidedly unerwheleming hero. I still think there's something in the idea; but this realisation simply isn't good.

The line between entreprenneur and grifter is often a thin one. Michelle Mone ran a moderately succesful business by claiming it to be a great one; became famous; married a seriously rich financier; and then took advantage of the chaos and corruption around COVID to help herself to a large chunk of the government's money when the opportunity presented itself. There's some interest in her rags-to-disreputal riches story; what this series doesn't really go too deeply into is her links with senior members of the Conservative party - if you want to know if there was a spoils-for-friends arrangement, or if Mone merely took advantage of an opportunity, you won't find that here. Her side venture into cryptocurrency barely gets a mention. Sadly, it seems, we are too keen to admire those who make the fortunes we might wish we ourselves had.