aladar4

Should be used as a case study on documentary courses.

A film so bland, badly written and badly edited that even those new to being able to 'read' a film will find it obvious this is not the way to tell a story.

To learn about how to make a compelling film, just watch this and do the complete opposite.

The structure of this documentary seemed to be based on mainly showing cheap or free footage because the makers of the documentary were surprised that people with good footage would want to be paid.

Some songs were played for less than two seconds, while we seemed to get more than 10 minutes of a member of the public commenting on a George Michael news story. It seems the longest music clip was included with terrible audio because it was from someone's mobile phone from the back of a large hall.

Writer Moffat seems so very pleased with himself. He seems to think that a single piece of cod-philosophy is enough to carry a four part TV series. The kind of though a first-year university student would come up with on day one of a philosophy degree. Before the actual teaching has started.

As regards tone - it is all over the place. By accident, not design.

The powers of deduction attributed to Stanley Tucci's Hannibal Lector-like character aren't impressive. Is success is due to chance. In each of the cases he addresses, there are many other possible occurrences that might have happened.

At least it really is 'so bad it's good.' Enjoyable for committed performances from the British actors, let down by barely engaged performances from the Americans. Blame timid direction for that. Insecurity about getting good performances led to weak scene blocking and mostly unmotivated shot choices.

So if they do get a second season, I will tune in - if only to enjoy how bad TV can be and despair at how amateurish British productions can be.

What a stinker!

Terrible structure. Non-existent pace. Drab colour scheme. Mismatched acting.

Adam Driver's version of Michael Corleone comes across as an entitled idiot. Lady Gaga starts off with a tiny amount of dimensionality and then has to play single note turns for scene after scene.

After the first 15 minutes of mild interest the story devolved into "and then, and then, and then..."

Boring. Boring. Boring.

There a few themes buried in the story they chose to tell, but they were fumbled and not well explored.

They should have seen what a good trailer they had and made a film to match its trashy style. I'm looking forward to the fan edit that delivers what the trailer promised.

Sadly not even 'so bad it's good' - just bad.

Avoid!