Blue Murder - Set 1
|
List Price: Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
(Click here)
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Blue Murder - Set 1
Movie Review: Blue Murder - Season One
Summary: 4 Stars
Blue Murder - Set 1 - Very good. I like to see a women's point of view as an investigater.
Movie Review: She Solves Crimes With a Woman's Eye; Her Homies Love Her
Summary: 4 Stars
"Blue Murder, Set 1,"gives us the first episodes of a substantial British crime drama/police procedural, told from the woman's point of view. It is made by Granada for Independent Television (ITV). It is, apparently, a ratings hit in the U.K., where it drew 8.4 million viewers, a number almost unheard-of there, in its May, 2003 broadcast debut. It consistently ranks #1 in its primetime slot. However, the series is only now becoming available on this side of the pond, through its DVD release. It's leavened, no matter how gritty episodes may be, with some sly humor, and domestic subplots.
The series was created, and the first episodes written, by Cath Staincliffe, who has said she's particularly interested in the problems of women, single mothers, trying to be good mothers to demanding families while holding down demanding jobs. Staincliffe is a Northern/Midlands British girl, through and through: she was born in Bradford, graduated from Birmingham University, and, as a graduate, moved to Manchester to start a job. She has published several mysteries, including a series about another Manchester single mum/private investigator. Her work has been nominated for awards, and is highly praised by her hometown critics. Val McDermid, Manchester's reigning crime queen, said, Staincliffe"has her finger on the pulse of her city and that rare ability to write about love motherhood and friendship without sentimentality, a must," in "The Manchester Evening News." Another local reviewer said her work was "compassionate, exciting, and down-to-earth. Infused, also with that rare and precious ingredient: true feeling." And you'd better believe me, in the Midlands, you'd better be down-to-earth. "The Yorkshire Post" said her work was "warm, compassionate and engrossing."
Caroline Quentin ("Jonathan Creek," "Men Behaving Badly,"), an award-winning comic actress, plays the lead part, newly-promoted Detective Chief Inspector Janine Lewis, and reveals that she's got solid dramatic chops, as well as comic ones. She plays a contemporary top cop, supervising a squad in the English midlands city of Manchester; but she's also a single mum of four, who finds it as difficult to supervise goings-on in her own home. Ian Kelsey ("Casualty") plays her handsome lead detective, source of some romantic and professional stress. Among the company, Nicholas Murchie stands out as Detective Schapp.
The stories are set in Manchester, and filmed there: it provides a strong background to them, as a place boasting great diversity of place and atmosphere, and equally great diversity of population. It's just a bustling, interesting-looking town we don't often get to see over here. And the series has been filmed with a liberal hand, no shortage of cars and people in the streets, bars, police station, etc. However, a word to the wise, the actors apparently have been encouraged to use local accents and slang, which add greatly to the foreign flavor and pleasure of the production, if you can make out what they're saying, in an accent that's rather unfamiliar to us on this side of the pond. And there are no subtitles.
The first episode, "Cry Me A River," a two-parter, is by Staincliffe. With three kids at home, and another on the way, Lewis rushes home, champagne in hand, to share the good news with her husband - she's just been made Manchester's first female DCI. She finds her husband in bed with the cleaner Tina, and it's champagne for one. Along comes her first big murder case: she's hardly in the mood, but she worked hard for the promotion and she's determined to succeed. Matthew Tilley, a 42-year old teacher/deputy head of a local high school, has been left to die, almost eviscerated, face down in the mud of his allotment. Lewis's prime suspect is on the run, her only eyewitnesses an elderly dying man and a seven-year old girl. This episode most closely resembles the "Prime Suspect" series; it's more violent than the author's usual, and more powerful. It strongly addresses women's concerns and issues; we're going to find out that the vic wasn't a very nice guy. Mind you, we see a lot of pretty scene of crime officers, and a best black girlfriend for Lewis: we won't see these again. Nor, single mum that she may be, will we again see Lewis ironing, or picking the head lice out of her daughter's hair, as she does in these episodes.
The third episode," Hit and Run," also written by Staincliffe, was praised by "The Birmingham Post" as "an original thriller whose protagonist is no-nonsense and thoroughly likeable... combines gritty realism with a clever plot." And you may be sure, once again, those Midlands girls had better be no-nonsense. Another local publication called it "gritty, intelligent, humane, and involving... a highly believable heroine rooted in a vivid and convincing Manchester background." Lewis is dropping her son Tom off at school when she sees a horrifying hit-and-run that kills a little school girl. At the same time she takes a call about a girl's body fished from the river. The two events will prove related.
The fourth episode, "Up in Smoke," is an interesting and rather gruesome one. After the cremation of suicide victim Charlotte Moran, evidence suggests that a second body was burned with hers in the coffin.
The fifth episode, "Fragile Relations," involves ethnic tensions between the city's white and Muslim communities. It's not the most original plot in the world, and suffers from an excess of preachy political correctness.
Episode Six, "Lonely," is again a powerful woman's story, involving the death of pretty young child minder Diane Waugh, and Lewis's only witness to the crime, an autistic boy the victim looked after.
The series inevitably will be compared to Helen Mirren's "Prime Suspect," and it holds its own, although the mysteries in this series are lighter than, not as powerful as some in the "Suspect" series. But, of course, where we'd all mostly agree that Tennyson is tall, slim, and regal-looking, we'd also mostly agree that Lewis isn't. But her homies are crazy about her, anyway.
Movie Review: No scientific extravaganza and a little bit of luck
Summary: 5 Stars
The story is simple but tricky enough to let you get lost in some contradictory details. You are all the more lost because the obvious elements are leading you astray, along the path of a serial killer, when it is not, along the path of rotten young people when it is the adults, teachers and school-principals mind you, who are. You are phased out by love when that love can find some real soil in a relation of the master-slave type. And of course we are in England, so no deluxe free scientific police or forensics because it is expensive, and hurry up because we have to fulfill our targeted objectives in efficiency and productivity, as if crime and criminal investigations had anything to do with efficiency, productivity and nothing to do with high level technology and patience, a lot of patience. The Detective Chief Superintendant is a blind idiot creating stress with his whip that wants to beat some clear water into mayonnaise. Add to it that the poor Detective Chief Inspector is a woman, pregnant, divorced and with three kids, one already in his mid-teens and you have the perfect overdose of stress to end up in a hospital. And she manages, with a lot of luck it is true, to get a culprit, with hard evidence and a confession. The crime is sordid, like life, but the series is British so the actors are regular actors who do act properly and convincingly. They even know how to cry without looking or sounding like mooing cows or meowing cats, both with a sore throat. And that is what I like in British series. The good acting and the intricate plot. What's more the series is long enough for us not to be rushed through the action at a TGV or Eurostar speed. And of course the solution is not necessarily what we were expecting and it avoids the worst worn out humdrum pedophiliac outcome, since for once teachers and school principals, at least those implied in this case, were not child molesters not teenager rapists. Good entertainment.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Movie Review: Blue Murder - blu who who
Summary: 1 Stars
Blue Murder is perfect for those who really want a weepy soap opera, but whose significant other demands a mystery. The main character is infuriatingly bland and one wonders how or why she became a Chief Inspector, or an actress for that matter. The dialogue, such as it is, begs the question: Are you really trying to put us to sleep? You'll hear such memorable lines as (disclaimer: I made these up. Actual lines may be far worse.) "We've got to work hard to crack this case!" and "Let's all work together!" She should have added, "And I really, really mean it!"
Some of the supporting cast are wonderful and will no doubt keep you from kicking in the front of your TV. When the main character appears, use the fast forward, mate. Don't worry, you won't miss any of the plot.
Movie Review: Much better than Prime Suspect
Summary: 5 Stars
Unlike PS, this show has a believable woman as its main character. A diorced woman who is trying to get along with the ex after he hurt her, four kids and very interesting cases. Hope there are more episodes a coming.
More Movie Reviews:
1 2
1 2