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A tense and convincing three part dramatisation of the events leading up to the arrest of serial killer Levi Bellfield in 2004. Bellfield, a hulking, aggressive, mood-swinging brute of a guy with a fetish for young girls and a hatred of blondes was eventually caught after his savage murder of a young French girl Amélie De La Grange who had only been in the U.K. for a couple of months, although he'd killed twice before, almost killed another and otherwise had a history of violence. The first major homicide case of a newly appointed DSI Colin Sutton, on whose new book the programmes are based, his old-school, meticulous approach to the evidence seemed to upset his results-driven boss and one or two young Turks in his own team but eventually paid dividends in a life-means-life conviction for the monster murderer.
The series has been justifiably commended for its non-sensationalist approach to its subject matter so that none of the killings are re-enacted, the Bellfield character gets no chance to defend or justify his actions and while there are one or two eureka moments and other tense dramatic situations like when the team await the CPS go-ahead to arrest him and then when they finally raid Bellfield's house, these are played out in a low-key, unspectacular way as befits the seriousness of the subject matter.
I guess we'll never know the dramatic licence taken with the events, such as who's real and did that actually happen but this is usually the case with sensitive true-life situations and it looked to me as if sufficient respect was paid to the parties most affected by Bellfield's actions. In particular we see this with the sympathetic treatment of Amelie's grieving parents especially when they are given the heartbreaking news that better policing after Bellfield's previous attacks might have prevented their daughter's murder.
My main criticism of the series was the usual one I find in these TV dramas, the playing up of the lead detective's family life. I could care less that he wasn't getting on with his profiler wife, missed a family wedding trip to Spain with her or that he forgot his daughter's birthday. It was very obvious without these domestic dramas to see that Colin Sutton was a driven policeman, consumed by the case.
I don't think I've seen Martin Clunes in anything since "Men Behaving Badly" even as I'm aware that he appears to be being set up as the new David Jason as he goes into his older age. He was solid in the lead part however and had good support from the rest of the cast, some of them recognisable from other TV dramas of the recent past.
This was an important story, soberly told as it should have been and a good example of how to portray tough subject matter such as this.
score 7/10
Lejink 10 January 2019
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4573297/ |
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15-11-2020 12:38:05