Reviews

I've watched every one of the long-running "Murder in..." French TV anthology series, as it is titled and streamed at MHz in the US. Despite the variety of casts and filmmakers, there's been a consistent quality, ranging from pretty good to pretty darn good.

Then...there is this stinking pile of manure. It's as if the writers have never seen a murder mystery, or written a script, for that matter. The story and characters are beyond stupid. A simple example: a woman tells a priest that her bedroom must have a demon in it, because it's full of flies. He goes to check it out, and voila, finds a big pile of rotting meat under the bed. Like...the lady would not have smelled that? Every other element and plot twist is equally lame and ridiculous.

And the lead characters, two detectives, manage to come off as both boring and rather despicable. But they are nice to look at, I will admit.

This should have been a three-hour epic brimming with fascinating scenes, amazing moments, and incredible characters. Such was the life of the Chevalier, with so much to offer the storyteller. Instead it's a plodding 2-hour melodrama with predictable, throwaway storylines, mediocre acting, weak writing, and clueless direction. The filmmakers at least do not go down the road of so much historical drama of this moment, adding rock music, gratuitous profanity, current slang, color-blind casting, etc., and instead try to do it the old-fashioned way, with that posh, Masterpiece Theater "tone," but no one involved is up for the challenge. Even the scene where the Chevalier ventures among his fellow Black in Paris and joins in the drum-playing, which should have been a raucous delight, is dull and lifeless. A missed opportunity, big-time.

The "Murder(s) in..." TV movie series from France is uneven, to be sure, but I've see 'em all and this is the very, very worst. Zero chemistry between the leads...cardboard characters...absurdly complicated plot...misinformation about recreational drugs...boring scenery...mediocre music...and a completely ridiculous ending, Involving a person wearing a bird head, like something out of an old Monty Python episode. The person did not want to be recognized in town so they would wear the bird head, like that would not attract attention? The ending actually made me laugh out loud, and laughs are hard to come by these days, so I do appreciate that. But this was a really terrible movie!

I make comparison to Jane Campion advisedly...it's really that bad. Perpetually weird mood, blank affects, and scenes that proceed at turtle's pace do not make for engaging, or even challenging, drama. When I saw there was a season 2 I thought it had to be a joke. But it's not. It's like a terrible deja-vu. And speaking of deja-vu, I make comparison to Jane Campion advisedly...it's really that bad. Perpetually weird mood, blank affects, and scenes that proceed at turtle's pace do not make for engaging, or even challenging, drama. When I saw there was a season 2 I thought it had to be a joke. But it's not. It's like a terrible deja-vu. And speaking of deja-vu...

I watched this via Channel 4 in the UK in 2022, and have had a look at the current reviews, which seem to have been placed by 1) people with some vested interest in the show who give it vapid rave reviews, and 2) people who for some reason have an almost pathological hatred for the show. It's certainly not a 10-star blockbuster, but nor is it a 1-star mega-turkey. To be sure, the writers have absolutely no clue how to actually construct a bona fide mystery plot, and apparently no interest in doing so; their aim is to create quirky characters and spin a certain light, escapist mood, and there they succeed. So, yes, most of the crime plots make no sense, and the "solutions" don't hold water...but...the show is so damned entertaining! I'm going to give it a generous 7 stars, and yes, I would watch a second season.

Fidgeted through two episodes with an increasingly sinking feeling of deja-vu, and sure enough, a check on the web tells me this is a remake of Marcella. A remake. A remake??? Of one of the worst crime dramas of recent decades??? I would have to be out of my mind (like Marcella? Like Rebecca?) to sit through eight hours of this crap again. I could not change the channel fast enough! Fidgeted through two episodes with an increasingly sinking feeling of deja-vu, and sure enough, a check on the web tells me this is a remake of Marcella. A remake. A remake??? Of one of the worst crime dramas of recent decades??? I would have to be out of my mind (like Marcella? Like Rebecca?) to sit through eight hours of this crap again. I could not change the channel fast enough!

This is the episode with the extended nude scene of Vera and Remy. It's funny, it's sweet, it's very erotic. The stuff of television legend and a high-water mark for French comedy. If this isn't worth 10 stars, I don't know what is! And now, to reach my minimum word requirement, it's worth stating again: This is the episode with the extended nude scene of Vera and Remy. It's funny, it's sweet, it's very erotic. The stuff of television legend and a high-water mark for French comedy. And now, to reach my minimum word requirement, it's worth stating again: This is the episode with the extended nude scene of Vera and Remy. It's funny, it's sweet, it's very erotic. The stuff of television legend and a high-water mark for French comedy.

It's an earnest effort, but the results are just barely so-so. If you watch a lot of international crime shows, you've see it all before, and done better. (In particular, the improbability-meter here frequently goes into the red, sometimes way into the red.) The first two episodes are excruciatingly slow and the eventual wind-down is interminable. To be honest, I watched the whole thing only from a sense of support-all-things-Ukrainian. Had this series been from, say, Romania or Poland, I would have bailed after the first episode. As for atmosphere, it certainly makes Ukraine out to be a hopelessly corrupt, dreary, dangerous place, but then, that's what the noir genre does, whatever the location, and that's one reason it fascinates people.

The makers of this series seriously reject science and embrace "religious" mumbo-jumbo. It might not matter, except that many people (mostly children) are killed every year by relatives and priests hell-bent on "exorcising" a demon. I'd think twice about setting foot in Serbia after watching this. This kind of propaganda is clearing the way for Putin and his priests to move in and put everyone in their places, especially women. Did I mention how misogynistic this series is? That the series is well-produced and seriously mounted makes it all the more dangerous.

Four episodes in, and I am bailing.

The show is professionally made and looks great, and I tried to like it, but not a single character even remotely appeals to me. They are all a bunch of skanky low-lifes, some despicable, some more pathetic than others, but that does not make them sympathetic, just pathetic. They have none of the redeeming qualities that can soften an anti-hero, like friendship, loyalty, quirky dreams, or even a sense of humor. What a dour bunch of losers!

I see that two of the young stars also wrote and created the show, so this must be a dream-project for them, but they need to come up with something much better than this if they want an audience that keeps streaming to the very end, eager to find out what happens. I could not care less.

It is not often that this jaded thriller fan is impressed, and less often that he is moved to tears. But this series did both. I was all the more impressed and moved because the real coup de theatre came from a direction I did not anticipate but could not deny. Among the many outstanding contributions (besides the direction and writing) are the lead actors, who are incredibly charismatic, and a marvelous music score that evolves and sneaks up on you over the course of the series. I persevere through many so-so or merely satisfying shows to come upon a gem like this. Bravissimo!

PS: Months after posting this review, I occasionally come across this show in listings, and try to remember what I so loved about it. Then it comes back to me...and I suddenly catch my breath. So heartbreaking, so beautiful.

Look, I'm gay myself and I wanted to like this show, but all the tongue-clucking at those (uniformly) awful heterosexual men became rather tired and predictable after a while. Rapists and gaslighters, the lot of them! Also, the scenes with the Downs daughter were painfully awkward, obviously not filmed with the two actors actually conversing but in separate takes. All in all, as a crime drama, sadly mediocre.

I started to think I was watching the same episode over and over; nothing ever seemed to happen except pointless chases. Maybe this story could have filled out three hours, but eight? Watching became a chore halfway through, but I doggedly finished. Was not worth it.

This series has all the psychological resonance and complexity of a really rich novel. The filmmakers never tell us what to think or how to judge the situations and characters; they simply show the way real human beings interact. Much of the emotional power comes from showing how, for all of us, there are paths taken and not taken. I don't think a viewer needs to have any knowledge or connection to the particular location and thought-world of Orthodox Jewry; I'm an atheist non-Jew married to an atheist Jew and have been to Israel, and while this story took me to some very unfamiliar places every moment held my interest and elicited my sympathy for the characters, their dilemmas, and their chosen solutions. My usual fare of Euro crime thrillers may seem a bit thin after this.

My frustration with the filmmakers' work (here and previously) is that the moral always comes down to: promiscuity is bad...gay men are promiscuous...they are promiscuous because they are self-hating...they are self-hating because of mother. The whole story here builds to that dubious revelation. Based on my own experience of life, I just don't buy it, but I think this really must be gay reality for the filmmaker. Sad. I can't recall ever seeing a loving, lasting gay relationship in his works, just miserable people headed for destruction.

Gimmicky time-splicing story (present-day and 30 years hence) never comes together. The 1-episdoe, 45-minute mysteries are thin; the over-arching story involving the future of our protagonist just becomes irritating, Ultimately, I was glad to be done this show (left hanging, predictably) and would not care to see a second series.

Like a number of Brit coms I have watched recently, this one centers on a sad git who lets everyone in his world walk all him and treat him like dirt. He's a masochist, I guess, and they are all sadists. The result is a nonstop orgy of misery. What is funny about that? The cast is great, but oh how I wish the situations made me laugh. (Some recent comedies that DO make me laugh: Upstart Crow, Stath Lets Flats, Arde Madrid, Detectorists, Motherland, What We Do in the Shadows.)

I pretty much totally forgot 90 per cent of Season 1, which tells you something. Season 2 is a slow-motion disaster. Utter poppycock is treated with utmost gravitas. Nothing and no one is remotely believable. Worst--and repeatedly--idiotic police work is used to lurch the plot forward. If you saw an open trap door into a creepy subterranean chamber, and you were all alone miles from nowhere, well, sure, you would go down there without so much as texting someone, wouldn't you? And it just gets worse. Nice theme song, though.

First episode was so bad-with all the patently absurd "Celtic lore," and a female lead who seems to be a poor parody of Saga Noren from Bron/The Bridge-that I won't watch another. I did not believe a single character or actor in the episode. A trifecta of bad acting, writing, and directing.

The setting (Moscow) and the hook (large-scale financial shenanigans) are intriguing, but the plot is flimsy and contrived and the characters are so unreal that anyone might say or do anything anytime anywhere. The killings that drive the plot make no sense if you pause to think about it, and the reveal at the end is just a bore. (Also completely unbelievable is the main character's "mysterious" back-story.) This is sort of like those "airport thrillers" that bored travelers used to read to pass the time on long flights; it doesn't matter if you finish the book, you just toss it in the trash can when you reach your destination and never think about it again.