Peter Williamson

Unfortunately, The movie suffers from poor storytelling. The motivation driving the main character, the embittered and isolated main character, Phil, Is never explained. The most frequent term used to describe Phil Is “toxic masculinity “which is a political term derived from radical feminism. By itself, this does not help us understand his extreme hostility toward his brother’s wife, his bizarre rejection of any modern comforts, or his seemingly paranoid need to control every relationship and his life. Because these storytelling essentials are not covered, Phil becomes a one dimensional type character. It is mentioned, for example that he went to Yale and the wife of the governor is looking forward to meeting him apparently because he is reported to be very intelligent. So what happened to Yale and is this why he was such a pathological person?This is never explained and one wonders why it was ever brought up in the first place. Aside from very flawed storytelling, the photography is beautiful. The tension is unrelenting and needed to be broken up by some moments of comedy or at least humanity (i.e., like the porter scene in MacBeth). The best part of the movie and the only part with real plotting, was the way in which the young man - Who is able to put his psychopathic tendencies to good use to protect his mother - figured out how to kill Phil. However, because we were never given the means by which we could understand him as a human being, I doubt the audience shed any tears at his death.

The first four seasons were fantastic, but season five was simply dreadful. The difference between the good and the bad and ugly boils down to the characters. The series regulars during the first four seasons not only had a kind of likeable humanity, but they also shared a sense of humor and a wonderful chemistry that was lost in the season five resurrection. Of course, the writers had to deal with the loss of the Nicola Walker character. Yes, they had to introduce a "complex" Nichola Walker replacement. Yes, they had to come up with a socially relevant tangled up mix of characters that would justify six episodes to untangle. Yes, yes, yes. But what drudgery! The whole product was overdone, needlessly complex, contained unnecessary characters, and was utterly humorless. I grimaced my way through to the end because I had found that the previous four seasons had resolved the Byzantine plots in a more-or-less satisfying way. Not so with season five. A lot was left unresolved, and it was impossible to recall who half of the characters were without a study guide. In the end the police got half of it wrong because the drug addict and street criminal grandson lied to them. But of course, all that was justified because Lord Tony Hume was, well, "privileged" and they weren't. The message is this: if you can't come up with a decent plot, just make your characters victims of Britain's colonial- era past and that will justify anything. What garbage!