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I watched the whole series and frequently questioned if that was a good idea but at least I'm able to offer an opinion based on the whole having given it every chance. I've tried to be deliberately vague to avoid plot spoilers but if you're very sensitive about this then stop reading now!
Nothing here is very original but that doesn't bother me in itself as long as it's well done, however, this really isn't with the writing being the main culprit. The plot has too many flaws, even taking into account artistic license, and the characters are simply TOO random and inconsistent to be believable and sympathetic people that we can relate to. What's worse is that avoiding simple mistakes and greater depth, maybe adding another couple of episodes to the series or better writing and editing, could have made the whole thing a lot more complete.
We have a teenage girl that morphs from a family minded, idealist into a barely recognisable love sick, morally clueless, lost soul. If this is how it was going to go then her starting point should have been different and the journey laid out in more depth so that it had some credibility but for me there was none.
We have a young man murdering a small child and showing zero remorse, or any psychological impact, but then we're asked to believe that, because he had a rough childhood, he's just misunderstood rather than being the psychopath that he's portrayed as in the first half of the series. This isn't a twist in the plot, it's treating your audience like idiots expected them to lap up any rubbish you throw at them. This is underlined by the fact that a dark haired young boy somehow grows up having mousy blonde hair. If you don't respect your audience enough to care about details like this then why should we care about anything you put in front of us?
We have a serious criminal mastermind who apparently warrants intensive (and morally ambiguous to say the least) long term under cover investigation but then inexplicably transforms into a, not so bad, small time, bumbling crook.
Two of the revenge gang are just clichés that aren't even considered important enough to explain their place in the overall story. You have the humongous, largely silent, brooding black guy who is somehow the "brother" of the short, skinny but deadly white guy. There's the bearded, Northern, wannabe, rock star who's straight out of a Harry Enfield sketch and serves no purpose but to make the show quirky and give it a Fargo like charm. Fail.
The police chief's wife and the oil giants PR rep (Christina Hendricks, from Mad Men, who inexplicably gets second billing after Tim Roth) are again back and forth on who they really are but instead of coming across as complex human characters they just seem all over the place and less than believable.
Tim Roth's character is perhaps the simplest and most believable. A man trying to turn a new leaf and leave his demons behind only to have them chase him across the globe, he goes back to his ruthless past self to try and deal with his nightmare present. His (sober) judgement about what to voluntarily share with a woman that's only just emerging from a coma is suspect to say the least.
A group of women of good character kill an attacker, clearly in self defence, yet decide to make themselves criminals rather than victims by covering it up. The show doesn't so much have plot holes in it but a complete false bottom with very little that sticks such that it's believable and we can connect with it.
Rowan Joffe, creator and writer of the show, in my opinion has made a real mess of it!
score 3/10
online-892-412126 16 September 2017
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3808789/ |
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22-11-2019 07:42:57
