b_clerkin

Anyone who's ever wondered about studies that attempt to quantify criminality or predilection towards violence should watch this cacophony of crazy.

Unrelenting and casual violence - a Ritche trademark- utterly amoral pragmatism, near Shakespearean intrigue, real estate porn and flashy cars abound in this look into an Irish mob family fighting with an East End rival. Street thugs,whose ill-gotten gains provide them with posh homes, stylish clothes and elegant transportation, revert back to their crude and violent roots at the drop of the hat. Treachery, agendas within agendas, unthinkable scheming to undermine supposed allies- It's all here. It could use a bit more of Ritchie's influence, however- there are few humorous moments.

Reviewers complain about plot holes and lack of credibility in the story - and it is kind of hard to accept that these instances of extreme violence are portrayed as run if the mill events.

Another reviewer lamented that there are no sympathetic characters- and that viewers like to have empathy for at least one major player. I disagree because two of the main roles are not entirely unsympathetic, Harry (Tom Hardy at his best) and Kevin (Paddy Considine gives a fairly nuanced performance of a stock type character). The secondary cast also has a couple of appealing members.

The rest of them are just batshit crazy, especially Helen Mirren's Maeve and her spawn of Satan grandson, Eddie.

Eddie is why people want to kill the rich Spoilt, over-privilegded, entitled, narcissistic and sadistic. He is Joffrey Baratheon with a smartphone. Utterly devoid of empathy, arrogant and disdainful, he is as toxic as a Superfund site and not nearly as smart as he thinks. As he casually terrifies his friends and family with his unpredictable behavior, you wonder why nobody has cracked him across the face with a sledgehammer yet- you can tell he was a horror as a child.

His father, Kevin, is constantly trying to rein him in, but he is undermined by his wife's numb indifference and particularly by his mother, Maeve, who dotes on the despicable monster and treats him like a precious toddler- albeit one to whom she gives a bag of coke like other grannies dole out Cheerios.

Clearly, this family is evidence of the theory that mental illness skips a generation because Kevin is a fairly reasonable (for a hardened member of a crime family with past trauma of his own) but his mother and son can make you believe that people are just born evil. They gleefully torment people, think sudden violence is the apt response to a mild slight and have zero regard for the catastrophic consequences their monstrous actions might have on people about whom they allegedly care.

Mirren's skill as an actress prevents this truly awful woman from being a cartoonish and even offers glimpses of possible reasons why she is so unrelentingly horrid. Her normally acid conversation becomes almost nauseating, when she fuses over Eddie with the same cloying manner that a doting grandma uses when engaging with a toddler.

It's rather unnerving.

I watched the first three seasons of the original TV series when it aired on PBS or A & E or whatever. I had to watch it because I became a huge fan of Idris Elba as Stringer Bell in The Wire. I still thinks it's his best performance, but John Luther is almost as compelling.

I was looking for something to stream this past weekend and I decided to rewatch those seasons and catch up.on the two that I missed.

What a let down. Luther was a promising procedural with excellent writing, plausible story lines and uniformly stellar acting. Seaon one was a powerhouse drama, following the proud tradition of great British procedural like Prime Suspect. Sadly, while that series and its descendant Line of Duty, all of which got better as they went along, Luther started slipping and by the time season five rolled around it had morphed into an illogical mess of extreme freakish criminals, plus the return of an almost cartoonish Alice, casually exploding into violence as she shows off improbable skills more in tune with an elite assassin or a female child of James Bond and Michael Meyers.

It's as though the writers took a wrong turn from a Lynda LaPlante or Ashley Pharoah cop show, focusing on using brains and shoe leather to solve crimes and explore the psyches of police and criminal, into a Guy Ritchie free for all with outrageous plots and relentless violence, except lacking the levity that tempers the horror of his films. Luther went from a tortured cop bent on seeking the truth and a measure of justice to a slightly bewildered action hero with so many plates spinning he veers into farce.

I thought season five was ridiculous and strayed so far from the original Luther vibe that it was almost unwatchable, so I was pleased to see a bit of Season One Luther when Fallen Sun started. I should have known better because it soon descended into an ever more ludicrous scenario with Andy Serkis chewing the scenery as a character so extreme, he could be from the MCU.

There's no attempt to explore his back story outside of a few throwaway lines here and there, the prison scenarios are totally unbelievable and the plot has holes big enough to drive a supetanker through.

It skips around, leaving the characters barely sketched out except for Luther and Schenk - abd that's only if you're familiar with the series. Anyone for whom this film is the introduction to John Luther will be less than impressed- more likely confused and annoyed.

Another reviewer quipped that this plot might have been a reaction to the rumors of Elba taking over as James Bond, because the ending segment is a dreadful and low rent mashup of some of the more outrageous Bond villians and their over the top criminal exploits.

John Luther and Idris Elba both deserved better treatment. So did those of us who welcomed Luther as another excellent and thought-provoking procedural, only to have our intelligence insulted with a second-rate action program within plausible scenarios featuring repulsive psychotic caricatures as criminals.

The town of Brokenwood is filled with a rotating cast of odd characters- well written and fully developed and usually good for a laugh or three each episode. The victims and killer are usually guest roles, but sometimes it is a regular.

Into this town comes an iconoclastic and clever detective, whose own quirks fit right in, but who seemed a bit shocked by the eccentrics at first - they thought he was strange as well. Eventually, relationships built and now the exchanges range from fruitful to exasperation to absolutely bonkers.

The main roles over the seasons have been well performed, developing, changing and growing. We learn more about their lives as time passes. The relentless romantic overtures from the Russian pathologist, Gina, towards Shepherd are a delight- with malapropisms and bizzare Russian stories adding to the fun.

The murders are uniformly interesting and well plotted-and the presentation of clues and insights from the witnesses are credible in the context of the crime.

The writers and actors are so adept at being deadly serious about the crimes while simultaneously inserting astute observations about people and life and at least two laugh out loud moments in each episode.

The show largely succeeds at avoiding cynicism because the detectives, though slightly jaded by their experiences, never disrespect the victims and display both empathy and righteous anger appropriately, no matter how absurd the situation.

There is very little preaching or obvious attempts to lecture about morality - just facts and situations organically presented in context with the situation.

Anyone who wants to relax and have their brain engaged as well as their sense of humor will love this series.