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...except that the Battlestar remake came 10 years after Cracker. But you get the point.
The British series "Cracker" is a gritty, tense and often humorous psychological crime drama about a misfit human being ("Fitz" played by Robbie Coltrane) who happens to be a genius at reading human nature. Even though he can't seem to get a grip on his own failing life, he is the police force's best asset when it comes to solving grisly murders.
Bringing to the TV screens a new and quite disturbing sort of realism that had never been seen before, at least nothing I'd ever seen, Cracker was one of the first shows that boldly dove into the concept of the anti-hero. You won't find any lily-white heroes here. There's no John Wayne (although on occasion Robbie Coltrane's character does a pretty good job of impersonating him, along with Humphrey Bogart & Columbo). The good guy doesn't always win, the good guy isn't always right, and most notably sometimes there isn't even a good guy.
Shows today have embraced this realism very well, but back in the late 80s-early 90s you have to remember TV screens were still dominated by the likes of Baywatch & Walker Texas Ranger. Entertaining stuff, but very clearcut good vs. evil type stuff where good always wins with a joke & freeze frame at the end.
Here in Cracker you're more likely to get an ending where the wrong person goes to jail, or someone gets blown up, fade to black, roll credits. Yes folks, this is a far cry from Columbo... although Columbo fans (like me) will be thrilled at the idea of a brilliant criminologist who usually--not always but usually--seems to be just 1 step behind the criminal and 1 step ahead of the audience. This, coupled with the aforementioned moral ambiguity of all the characters, ensures that NOTHING is predictable.
Robbie Coltrane is now famous for his Harry Potter role, but this is the first time I saw him and I was instantly hooked by his funny, self-deprecating arrogance, his cool intelligence on the job while, at home, being too crass & hot headed to hold a 2 sentence conversation with his family, and of course his very anti-heroic vices of alcohol and gambling... which, by the way aren't just thrown in for color; his character actually explains the logic in a lucid way that makes me want to saddle up to the nearest bar and order a tub of whiskey.
Seriously, though, while his uncontrolled addictions are far from charming, there is a certain glamor in it, similar to Bogart's whiskey swilling "Rick" in Casablanca. So if you are possibly offended by a hero who's not just an alcoholic gambler but quite proud of it, then you might want to avoid this. But like I said, this sort of realism is what broke the Baywatch mold.
As my title suggests, the only show I can really compare this to is the excellent 2003 remake of Battlestar Galactica which took the same approach of challenging our preconceptions of good & evil. Both of these shows begin with the premise of a "good guy" (the detective, or in Battlestar the human), and then turning everything on its head to the point where you may often find yourself rooting for the "bad guy" (the accused, or in Battlestar the cylons). Maybe it took 1000 years for storytellers to get it right, but I'm reminded of the ancient poem by Omar Khayyam with the greatest line ever written about the human species: "I myself am heaven and hell."
score 9/10
rooprect 17 March 2015
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3203823/ |
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9-10-2020 06:40:14