Un solo sguardo

Coben's books are all eerily alike, and sadly, this movie adaption is no exception. Boring and formulaic from the get go, it never recovers. No character development, subtlety or surprises. I tried hard to ignore my prejudice against American crime fiction (James Patterson being the worst offender). At least Coben seems to write the books himself, but at this stage I reckon I could write the next one... maybe an easy way to make those elusive millions without actually having to put in the hard work? Dreams are free...however, I'd be boring myself, I've read too many excellent - predominsnzly British - whodunnits. By all accounts, American audiences are looking for different fare.

What a frustrating watch. This show had potential, but the characters? Absolutely infuriating.

Let's start with the dumb wife-her husband goes missing under mysterious circumstances, she gets shot at, her kids are threatened... and her first instinct? Not to call her husband's colleagues or get real help, but to start making jewelry. Priorities, I guess. Then she turns down private protection-why? She's a mousy, unprepared person up against actual criminals, yet somehow thinks she can handle this alone? And to top it off, she conveniently knows nothing-nothing about a major accident in her past, nothing about her husband. How useful are you, lady?

The dumber husband isn't any better. He notices someone following him, confronts them without being armed, then turns his back like it's all good. Of course, he gets sucker punched. He escapes... and then just gets found again. Fantastic.

The police? Useless. Casual, sarcastic, wasting time on unnecessary details, and just completely unsympathetic. Then there's the prosecutor, who starts off with what seemed like an important storyline about his daughter but does absolutely nothing except stalk the dumb wife. His actual contribution? Zero.

Even the dumb wife's friend, who at least had the sense to call the police quickly, still managed to fumble her role. If you're trying to be subtle while snooping, maybe don't openly announce your sneak peeks? Just saying.

Then we have the bad guy, and honestly? Props to him for being the only competent character. He keeps winning, and at this point, I don't even mind.

The story itself? A mess. Too many pointless side characters that add nothing. The initial intrigue gets buried under ridiculous character choices, and by the end, you just don't care anymore. Hard pass.

Generally I enjoy Harlan Coben's books. He is an American. Yet every book they turn into a mini series is generally foreign and are dubbed with English. Secondly they are pretty poorly done, this one is no exception. I don't get why an author of such renown allow his books to be portrayed in this way. This one is pretty violent and many of the actors are heavily tattooed . What is it with all the tattoos? Although I watched the complete series I found it pretty unconvincing and the plot had a lot of holes in it. This will be the last series based on one of Harlan Coben's books that I will watch.

Wanted to like this but as others have said there are a lot of plot holes and a lot of weird choices by characters. I think the actors are mostly good but the material they are given just isn't great.

Maybe Harlan Coben series are just getting churned out too fast, the books seem more believable and logical. The mystery is there and the pieces start to fall into place but they seem a little forced, like no character really seems to know what they are doing or how to react to events. It's hard to root for any of them. I'm giving it a 6 because I did finish it so I guess it was enough that I wanted to see the resolution. Slow burn.

This Polish mini-series had me hooked from the beginning, and I thought it was excellent. The bad reviews I read came from people who didn't understand the story. Everything is very well explained at the end, all the crimes and all the murders. The actors are excellent, especially the main actress. But besides her, the characters are very well defined, such as her best friend and the police chief. An extremely tense series, with evil personified by an extremely violent criminal and an elegant and perverse lawyer. A mini-series that deserves to be watched in a marathon. Forget these negative comments.