Simply A Masterpiece

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A Disappointing Continuation

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

This was originally shown in the UK as a 3 part mini series. So those of you watching it as a "TV Movie" should realise that it has been crudely edited down. This is probably the reason that some of you found it dis-jointed. Incidentally one of the boys who found the body in the lake went on to become a member of the boyband One Direction.

The acting, photography, and location choice is great. It makes it so much more the pity that the script lets it down. Cut-and-paste storytelling with cliché-ridden dialogue is not acceptable in 2017. Most, if not all, scenes were predictable. I once heard an actor complain that the scriptwriters forgot what had happened to a character. This wasn't entirely the case, but the seriously frustrating problems here were the sheer implausibility of the characters. When one is a police inspector covering a murder enquiry one does not fall in love with the suspect to the extent that evidence tampering is the number one priority. To do their job, police inspectors must have a finely-tuned sense of consequences, both in terms of crime and criminal procedures. This drama threw away so much credibility I nearly switched off two or three times. Emotionally unstable police inspectors have surely had their 15 minutes of scripted fame, along with the predictable cliché of inspector to subordinate detective tension. The actors are worthy of so much better material.

The story is not as coherent as it should be. Several elements are referred to without any prior mentioning of them. Several sequences are merely stock scenes glued together without meaning. Very very cliché. Several items in the investigation don't add up either. I understand that it is difficult to write these things nowadays, but I had expected something infinitely better after reading the other comments. Also something seems amiss in the casting: the accents are awkwardly mixed, and the actors don't quite fit the characters. The action and enunciation are not fit together. Also, a lot of themes seem to be introduced, which are not followed up, nor even explained. I do admire the attempt to mix the whodunit with the flashbacks, and the psyche of the investigator, but it is no more than an attempt. It seems that nobody knew what they were doing at the time, and took things that could be successful, and put them together, hoping it would become coherent, which it doesn't. It is bizarre, but not in a good way. Honestly, I know quite a few things that are a lot better. Of course, this is all just my humble, yet bitterly honest opinion...

I have Just watched it, really enjoyed it although i did guess the ending about half way through as the wife would confirm so it was a spoiler for her!!. It HAD to be good,i mean Paul McGann , Mark Benton & Sarah Parish in the cast to me means good. Won't comment on the plot as don't want to spoil it for anybody waiting to see it but i did stay with it for two hours, saving calls of nature for the commercial breaks which to me is a sign that i was hooked.It clashed with a BBC extravaganza about Krakatoa which is right up my street but i chose to record that and watch at a later date so i had an instinct that this was worth watching "live". I wasn't wrong, i.m.h.o.