Isobel Starling

Terrible acting, awful dialogue, over-played direction. I guess there's a good story in here somewhere but it never made it to the screen. Brutally bad.

All of the Harlen Coben adaptations I've seen have been awful. Nonsensical scripts, hammy acting and ridiculous endings. Lazarus was the exception. The location, production design and direction were excellent, and I was amazed to later learn it was filmed in Bolton and Manchester, not London. The cast was very good, although I did get a little annoyed with the lead flying off the handle and shouting all the time. The paranormal thriller aspect kept me on my toes and the twist at the end left quite a cliffhanger. Bravo.

This is a pretty generic 'murder witness is gaslit by rich man' story arc. It passed the time, the cast is all fine, but the story didn't have me on the edge of my seat. This has the blandness of a made for TV movie, so don't expect much.

I'm two episodes in and not inspired to continue with the series. The back and forth storytelling doesn't work here. We know nothing about Iris, apart from the fact she's clever and loves a puzzle. There's no back story, no reason for us to root for her. There's a decent thriller in here somewhere but the way it's been told is bland. Oh, and the theme song is brutal...a warning if ever their was one!

This show started out interesting. and I kept watching for the mystery of wtf was going on at Tall Pines. However, and I didn't want to be one of 'those people', but the show went out of its way to hammer home certain identity angles that are very incendiary in the US, and in turn this becomes forced down the viewer's throat rather than naturally easing in the fact that Alex is a trans man and getting on with the investigation/mystery. Representation is important, but the presentation of it is important too. Mae Martin is known as a stand-up comedian, they're trans and they wrote this series. But as for acting, I wasn't convinced. Mae wasn't taking on a character 'Alex', who just happened to also be a trans man. It looked like Mae Martin was playing Mae Martin. They 'Mary-Sue'd' themselves into the narrative to play out their fantasy. I couldn't get away from the fact Mae looks like a pretty 14 year old boy, rather than a 30 something cop. Maybe a more talented actor in the role could have saved the series? The story is written without subtlety or creativity. The fact Alex is trans comes across as distracting from the story about what is going on at Tall Pines Academy. Instead of weaving it seamlessly into the narrative, it stands out like a sore thumb. I think Toni Collette is an amazing actor, but even she couldn't make me finish this series.

Kerry Godliman is great as Pearl, but Howard Charles as Mike is miserable with a face like a slapped arse. I understand that he's mourning a loss and is having a hard time moving on, but by series 3 he hasn't changed at all. It's his lack of personality and wooden acting that make this show hard work to watch. This supposed chemistry between Pearl and Mike just doesn't exist, no matter how much the script writer wants to make us believe. A better male lead would have made this a great show.

I left the review below after finishing season 1. I'm now on season 3 and it's gone from sublime to absolutely ridiculous so I removed a star. I cannot believe that the writers are still insisting the Pogues are 16. They've been through so much, and more than a year has passed and the actors themselves have changed physically. It's batty... and the amount of disbelief I have to suspend to get through the episodes of season 3 are huge. These kids have no money, no resources but a beat up camper van and yet are able to mount near military style missions for their treasure hunts. I think I'm done with this show. It took me a few tries to get through episode one of this show. I watched a bit then abandoned it, but stuck with nothing else to watch, I gave it another go. As soon as the treasure hunt storyline got going I enjoyed it. I hate the character of Rafe Cameron with the heat of a thousand suns, and the recurring theme of teenage boys with guns... and what happens when they don't get their own way is pretty chilling...( I watched this at a time where there'd been multiple shooting in the US carried out by angry young white men whose father's taught them how to shoot. And sadly this comment won't date because it keeps happening.) The kids are supposed to be 16, but they all look way older...like in real life the actor who plays John B is 32!!!

The film was an easy watch, considering that it was 2 hrs long. The cast was, on the whole, very good. I saw Richard Osman's wife Ingrid Oliver got a nepotism part, Tom Ellis was brutal. Pierce Brosnan was never good with accents (or singing) and the Essex accent he does here isn't convincing. One thing that annoyed me...why were the cakes so bloomin' massive? They were clearly catering for an American audience because British sponge cakes aren't that big and not three layers. The cost of making such huge cakes is more than a pensioner could afford. The cast do their best with a bland, unoriginal script.

*Spoilers* Back in Action is a frustrating, lazy mess of a film that wasted the talent of it's cast, and insults the intelligence of the audience. This is far from 'original content' as every spy / secret service / CIA stereotype was thrown into this shoddy script. Did the writer ever visit the UK or was their research watching British movies from the 1970s, cos their opinions of the UK were very dated. With the speed that tech is changing it was quite incredulous that the 'key' drive that the bad guys were searching for was 15 years old and had been hidden in a damp dungeon... and it miraculously still worked 😂 It's as if Diaz and Fox's characters blew up lots of stuff and injured loads of people for floppy disk. Cameron Diaz was never a good actor, but she passed on looks. Now her looks are fading and she can't distract from what a terrible actor she is. Andrew Scott phoned it in, playing the same haughty upper class idiot he's played so many times before. I'll never get the time I wasted on this back. Don't make the same mistake.

Watchable police procedural that follows the same MO as many others (bereved detective takes early retirement but can't stop working so is taken back as a consultant) , but this is clearly an Adrian Dunbar vehicle. He may have a decent voice but the jazz singing detective angle is very cringy and IMO the cliché jazz bar scenes are unnecessary and contrived... just in there to cater to Dunbar's ego. I'll find something else to watch.