crime
Undercover, Series Finale, BBC OneMonday, 16 May 2016![]() In its final episode Undercover tied up a lot of loose ends and introduced a number of new ones. The biggest loose end to remain unaddressed was pretty big. Nick Johnson was the alias of a policeman who in 1996 went undercover to spy on black... Read more... |
Line of Duty, Series 3 Finale, BBC TwoFriday, 29 April 2016![]() At last, after three series, Line of Duty delivered a denouement that felt like a satisfying jackhammer to the solar plexus. In the first series the bent copper under investigation escaped justice by jumping in front of a lorry. In the second there... Read more... |
Merle Haggard: Learning to Live with MyselfThursday, 07 April 2016![]() I interviewed Merle Haggard once and he’s a slippery old snake: dry, reserved and fiercely intelligent, with an ornery pride and an oft-used gift for riling people. I’m not sure we got to know him all that much better after Gandulf Hennig’s superb... Read more... |
Marcella, ITVTuesday, 05 April 2016![]() Can't get enough Scandi Noir? Then why not make your own? With the aid of Hans Rosenfeldt, creator of The Bridge and installed here as screenwriter, ITV has.Take one disturbed anti-heroine suffering from hallucinations and a disintegrating marriage... Read more... |
Maigret, ITVTuesday, 29 March 2016If you were expecting Rowan Atkinson to say "bibble" or make those Mr Bean gurgling noises, you came to the wrong classic detective drama. To play George Simenon's timeless French detective in a story subtitled "Maigret Sets a Trap", a melancholy,... Read more... |
The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, BBC TwoTuesday, 15 March 2016![]() Halfway through its 10-week run, The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story appears to be running in real time as it slowly, painstakingly tells the story of how one of the US's biggest sports stars was accused of the murders of his ex-wife... Read more... |
The Prosecutors: Real Crime and Punishment, BBC FourWednesday, 09 March 2016Murder is entertainment, which is why crime and the legal process are on television every night. But where drama and documentary focus on criminals and the police who catch them – and the barristers who cross-examine them in court – vanishingly... Read more... |
Murder: The Third Voice, BBC TwoFriday, 04 March 2016![]() Three and a half years ago the writer Robert Jones and producer Kath Mattock came at the crime genre from an unusual angle. Instead of having characters in a murder case talk to one another, they all addressed the camera directly, each offering... Read more... |
ExposedThursday, 25 February 2016![]() Exposed is a film suffering from blunt force trauma to the head. Director Gee Malik Linton’s name only remains as screenwriter after his largely Spanish-language film – more meaningfully called Daughter of God and centring on... Read more... |
Happy Valley, Series 2, BBC OneWednesday, 10 February 2016![]() “It’s routine, it’s procedure.” “It’s wank, it’s toss.” As you can tell, Happy Valley is back. If Sally Wainwright made bespoke ironmongery or dry stone walls or exceedingly good cakes, her work would come by royal appointment. Instead you can tell... Read more... |
Endeavour, Series 3 FinaleMonday, 25 January 2016We have been here before – literally. Morse and his colleagues discreetly observe a gangster’s funeral in Kensal Green cemetery – just as they did in Promised Land, one of the best episodes of Inspector Morse, first broadcast in March 1991. A... Read more... |
DVD: The Friends of Eddie CoyleTuesday, 19 January 2016![]() The cheerless The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a film which the description "slow-burn" could have been coined for. Watching the story of Robert Mitchum’s low-level criminal Eddie “Fingers” Coyle unfold is a sombre experience but when the climax comes... Read more... |
