the audience applauded

Simply Perfect

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is Ben Elton's homage to Croft & Perry's 'Dad's Army'. the very first episode shows Inspector Fowler coming out of a shop called Mainwaring's, looking very similar to Hodges in his ARP helmet. As the series progresses and the characters develop, you can see the similarities to the characters of Captain Mainwaring (Fowler) Pikey (goody) and Jonesey (Gladsone). Ben Elton makes a cameo appearance as a new age traveller in the first series. Although there are bound to be comparisons made with Blackadder, these are unfair as they are both in differrent classes. However, there are obvious similarities in the topical satire and digs at modern establishment. Fowler is not incompetent, nor do his staff make him appear to be so. in fact, they very rarely get it wrong in the pursuit of justice. (except when they arrested the wrong carol singers). The episode on Sir Paul Condon's press release, racism and asylum seekers ( Ism Ism Ism) was particularly relevant to the times, not to mention hilarious (Fowler pretending to be an asylum seeking martian)

I just got the series from Netflix after reading about it in one of my Brit-com books. I was sorry when the two discs were done. It is laugh out loud funny. Atkinson as Fowler is right on form and the rest of the ensemble cast matches him. Haig as Grimm is amazing he never falters even in his most tongue twisting lines ! Constable Goody is amazing the facial expressions alone are worth the rental cost. If you love Brit-coms this is a must see ! This is also one where you don't want to miss a word of the dialog. Sharp and witty. I noticed that in almost each episode there appear to be two- three distinct plot lines and how they do it is a mystery but everything comes together and is shown to be interconnected by the final fade out.

This series was a bit of a step back for Elton and Atkinson after the audaciously original Blackadder and Mr. Bean series. The Thin Blue Line is an old-fashioned farce set in a city police station. That's not to say it's bad--it's actually very funny, just not anything groundbreaking. A lot of the humor derives from playing stereotypes against themselves: our heroes are bumbling cops who manage to make fools of themselves while eventually solving the crimes and making fools of the bad guys (not to mention the detective division) in the end. Goody, who could be described as a flaming heterosexual, manages to combine a full repertoire of "nelly" mannerisms with a hopeless crush on Habib. Habib herself is both a stereotype (attractive young female character constantly pursued by almost every male character) and a skewerer of stereotypes. This show has its cake and eats it too, but the viewer is too busy laughing to question any of it. And in the tradition of the best British farces, it goes to unbelievable lengths to track down and hammer home every conceivable double entendre and smutty one-liner. When one finishes groaning and/or laughing, one can't help but admire such perseverance in the pursuit of craft.

This is by far Rowan Atkinson's best role as the police chief in a small village. I love this show about cops. Unlike NYPD Blue, these cops are more like the Keystone kops. Officer Habib is the politically correct Pakistani Muslim and she has to fend off the mild advances of a rather effeminate male officer. Of course the laughs don't end there, Rowan's character has a longtime relationship with a female officer. When Rowan's part forgets to renew their standing orders during his lunch hour at the bank, she has to go and lose an hour of her time. When she gets there, she telephones "I'm being held up." His response, "They really should hire more people at the Bank." She says "No Raymond, it's a hold up." Soon the police get there. The robbers want pizza and Raymond delivers. It's one of the funniest episodes in recent years.