Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgement

This was the only Prime Suspect movie I saw. The story was good and very intense. Its main attractions are the phenomenal, awesome David O'Hara, a great actor in a good-cop character, and Steven Mackintosh, who was electrifying as a psycho drug dealer. But to put as great an actress as Helen Mirren in that PITIFUL character was just very sad. I don't know who came up with that character, but Tennison's errors of judgment were so lame and plenty that the character herself made me awfully embarrassed of being female. If male chauvinists ever need a proof positive that women ARE the inferior gender, they should look no further. A person like that can't be trusted with boiling an egg, let alone superintending in the PD. If you want to see Mirren in a role worthy of her talent, AND another mesmerizing performance by David O'Hara, go see "Some Mother's Son". But don't get me wrong: this is absolutely worth seeing!

As good a show these days as it was back in 1996.

Always interesting to see what the actors are doing these days.

Not just the main cast but the minor players as well.

All cast are on top form with stand out performances from Steve Macintosh ,David O Hara, Julia Lane and the ever dependable Helen Mirren .

A great script but with a grubby feel of city life with a realistic look at the drug scene. Really enjoyed it again even after eighteen years as it has dated very little.

I bought the box set from Amazon and this is by far the best story line from the entire set. 8/10

"Prime Suspect 4" continues the exploits of the inscrutable and dogged seeker of truth and justice, Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison; the first of three miniseries (PS4, PS5, & PS6) with the notable absence of founding writer Lynda La Plante from the credits. Imbued with the same gritty reality of the first three series, the second three series pit Tennison against the forces of evil while coping with middle age, loneliness, indiscretions, a host of personal and professional problems, and resolutions which are sometimes less than ideal. PS4 conjures two stories while PS5 & PS6 are single stories which find Tennison seeking justice on behalf of the brutally wronged while waging war against institutions which are willing to sacrifice the interests of her victims for those of a greater good. In other words, to prevail, Tennison must overcome both evil and good forces, something which makes the always gray scenarios of the PS series yet grayer and the Tennison wars as much a matter of principle as of finding murderers. Very good stuff which only gets better from series to series. (B+)

I remembered the original Prime Suspect TV mini-series as being very good. I decided to re-watch them (with no interruptions this time) on DVD. I rarely re-watch anything, but seeing this series again was like basking in quality.

The acting is sometimes staggeringly good. The story lines are always great, of course I responded to some of the series more than others. Prime Suspect 3 was very dark, but great. Prime Suspect 5 is concerned with real life conflict. There is a mole in the department but who is it? When the answer is revealed, there is no cut and dry conclusion as to their fate, which turns out to be very satisfactory.

My wife and I go to the movies a lot and seeing the Prime Suspect series made ALL the other movies we were watching on the big screen pale in comparison. Even Collateral, which I consider a finely crafted movie just isn't in the same league.

Prime Suspect's star, Helen Mirren, was indeed irreplaceable. In Errors of Judgment, on the verge of retirement, Jane (Mirren) approaches the case of a missing teenager, which she refuses to abandon until the killer is brought to justice. Simultaneously stricken by personal problems, including her father's illness and her alcoholism, Jane is eventually drawn to a young girl pivot of the case, a smart and fiercely independent sort that reminds her of herself. The story line, as usually, was great. Phil Davies did an excellent job directing, which continued the style employed by Tom Hooper in the previous episodes. Prime Suspect was a TV series that both renewed the post-modern crime series and unfortunately fed the commonplace, undignified sex & violence elements that plague it nowadays.