Cracker

There are 3 great English series: Cracker, Prime Suspect and The Prisoner (with The Lakes a 4th). This latest movie is probably the best - the ending was one great piece of writing and simply devastating. Cracker was made to be Fitz and vice versa. Jimmy McGovern is just fantastic as usual - I wonder if they appreciate him in England. Likewise Prime Suspect is Helen Mirim's best work and Pat McGoohan will always be The Prisoner to me. I just caught a few episodes of The Lakes (can't find it anywhere) but it is worth a watch if you ever get a chance to see it. I have the older Cracker series and they are all fantastic - easy to watch more than once.

It doesn't give me any pleasure reviewing this hugely disappointing 'Cracker' special "Nine Eleven". As somebody who considers 'Cracker' to be one of the best shows not just of its genre but ever, this reviewer was honestly expecting much more than this.

"Nine Eleven" is not a complete abomination. The best thing about it is the characterisation of the killer, a sinister but never one-dimensional and very much compellingly character worthy of being a classic 'Cracker' killer. He is brilliantly portrayed by Anthony Flannagan. Robbie Coltrane also does a great job as Fitz, he deserved much more to do but what there is of Fitz is enjoyable.

In fact, generally it is the acting that salvages "Nine Eleven" from being a complete waste. There is also some atmospheric scenery, and with a weighty and controversial idea this had real potential to be a classic 'Cracker' special.

So what stopped it from being so? The main problem is that it doesn't feel like 'Cracker'. The characters are nowhere near as intriguing, with Fitz being too much of a criminally underused supporting character in his own show and the police being shallow and underwritten with almost non-existent chemistry. The balance of writing and mastery of storytelling apparent in 'Cracker' at its best is not apparent here, apart from the odd bit of spark (but considering the calibre of the show it is far more deserving of having just the odd bit of sparkle).

One really misses the poignant emotion and dark, acerbic humour, which is replaced with too much of a heavy-handed and overused anti-American tone that comes over as far too preachy. Even the violence is not as unflinching. With a story-line as controversial potentially as it was on paper, what could have been weighty, harrowing and emotional stuff is spoilt by a lot of tedium, an overload of heavy-handedness and constant flashbacks and the whole Iraq stuff that only confused and padded out the story, not necessary really. The direction also lacks spark, and unusually mawkish, and there is nowhere near enough of the "whydunnit" psychology that made 'Cracker' so unique among other mystery/detective shows.

Visually, "Nine Eleven" is not much better, apart from some decent scenery, style, atmosphere and class is severely lacking with sometimes distractingly amateurish camera work and too dark lighting. The music can be intrusive and doesn't really add to the action or drama, instead taking away from it.

All in all, while a comeback of Fitz is always welcome he deserved better than this, which is not a good representation of why 'Cracker' is so brilliant. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Great to see the big man back, though I felt an inward groan when I saw the theme. But Jimmy McGovern has improved with rage - no appeasing one small section of the suffering population by focusing on Asians. He went for the big picture and said EXACTLY what many people have been feeling for several years now about American money backing Northern Ireland, the myth of the Yanks winning WWII for the Allies, and the b.s. that is the war in Iraq. Some top acting from the leads plus the usual McGovern snappy intelligence in the writing made it essential viewing. Jimmy McGovern is our national treasure. His scripts make up for the oceans of bad clichés strangling uniform operas such as The Bill, Spooks, and every other indigo-coloured cop show bloating up our screens nowadays. Thank you! The one aberration he didn't have time to mention is the other grave crime that the Americans have yet to answer for: the butchery of Robbie Coltrane in the name of the US-produced abomination 'Fitz'.

For fans of the original Cracker nothing will ever measure up - how do you follow class acts like series 1 and 2? Answer - you can't really, times have moved on, no follow up can ever hope to have the same impact as the original and so it must be taken for what it is - a follow up which does its best to keep the feel of the original but which has to accept that, over a decade on, the country in which it is set has been through a lot of changes too.

Nevertheless this latest Cracker special isn't quite the abomination it's been made out to be, and I feel a lot of the criticisms aimed at it have missed the point.

It's true that the police are pretty characterless compared to old favourites like Bilborough, Penhaligon and Beck, but as opposed to being a criticism I see this as a clever comment on how PC has turned people in this country into cardboard cut outs scared of having a personality, especially in jobs where they have to deal with the public. Neutral, bland and nondescript, the attitude of our age is sharply observed as nobody wants to put their head on the block and be personally accountable for anything - passing the buck is the order of the day as they refuse to commit themselves to saying or doing anything that might come back on them later, accurately reflecting the paranoia of the modern workplace.

The anti-American sentiment is not as extreme as it could have been, but a few uncomfortable truths come out which I can see people being upset about. Too bad. To me this is not the writer projecting his political views onto the audience, as has been suggested, but that Cracker remains tough, topical and not scared to tell people the truth about themselves.

The plot could have been tighter in places and the coincidences it relied on are a little more obvious than in previous episodes, but not anything new in themselves. They've always been there in murder dramas, which by their nature are event driven.

Fitz is not as effective here which is a bit disappointing but is also more realistic than having the police bend the rules for him, which would have been out of the little character they have. He still manages to show his healthy disrespect for authority in small ways, like smoking in the police station, which I find just as entertaining as his more outspoken rants in earlier episodes. Times have changed and he's older. Robbie's performance has been called sleepwalking through the part but it could also be seen as Fitz being a lot more world weary since he is now in his 50s. As always, he is a joy to watch, and I can forgive a lot of the shortcomings of this episode to have him back.

To sum up, it's not Cracker at its best but it's not a disaster either. You could waste two hours on worse than this. In the modern day TV arena of the bland leading the bland, it still shines.

In contrast to the glowing review given by the previous poster,the latest Cracker is a huge disappointment on many levels. Primarily the new episode fails due to its overt and blatant political stance. As with any great series, the strength of Cracker lies in its characters, and its focus on the genus of the series.. crime and mystery solving. In the case of this latest episode, Cracker as a character is almost non existent.. the lesser characters such as his wife and oldest son seen perhaps or a total of 5 minutes of screen time. Instead we are subjected to one hour and 45 minutes of flashbacks, an "ugly American" that could only come from a stereotype that is appalling in its obviousness, and President Bush's comments. Frankly, if I wanted to spend time watching a paid political commercial I could watch the CBS evening news. Secondly I would venture to guess that they offered Coltrane a pile of money to appear in this because not only does he appear ill at ease but the script seems thrown together in its disjointed execution. I would suspect that this episode will quickly disappear and hopefully be replaced by episodes that stick to a tried and true formula free of political jargon which insults the intelligence of American viewers as well as those in England who refuse to have a favorite series used as left wing political crap. In sum this episode was a HUGE let down. Bring back Penhaligon and the gang!