Genres

Visitors Review

Rockwell_Fassbender 2012-05-20 15:59:12

The complete destruction of an excellent series.

A great trilogy that just falls apart in the final act. In the firsttwo films, we followed one protagonist on their mission to bring akiller to justice while also bringing down corruption within theYorkshire police force. In 1983 however, the narrative fractures intothree separate people, two of them having been involved from the start.We follow a member of the force who has for some reason just nowdecided after ten years of being corrupt and feeling bad about it thathe's actually going to do something, a loser lawyer who basically getsyelled at until he tries to save the innocents that have been harmed bythis seed of evil and a young male prostitute who has just had enoughof all the wicked.The film doesn't have enough time to fully resolve all of it's storylines, but it tries very hard to wrap it all up as efficiently aspossible. I admire this in a way (with something like this I'd ratherhave everything resolved over a lot being left wide open), but as aresult the entire thing feels very rushed and a lot of stuff comesseemingly out of nowhere to help tie it all up in a neat bow. Asidefrom the whole thing being very rushed and all over the place, theactual narrative structure of the film takes a bizarre and disjointedshift. The other two films had pretty straight-forward narratives, butthis one tries to do so many different things to help explain it all.There are flashbacks to the events of 1974, to help explain more aboutthe corruption back in that day, but aside from the first time theynever tell us when we're going back in time and sometimes it's honestlya little hard to figure out when we are. Along with that, we spendalmost half of our time back in 1974, so the film doesn't even reallyfeel like it should be titled 1983 because the focus doesn't seem to bemuch on it. They throw in some voice-over narration that feels very outof place as well, I guess to help with the lack of worthy screen timefor one of our main players.Don't get me wrong, the themes are still strong and I love the grit anddarkness of this entire trilogy, but this one just falls apart on somany levels. There's a whole subplot with a mystic that feels very outof place for such a grounded series and in some scenes they turn thesecorrupt police officers into such overbearing caricatures that youcan't even buy that they're just greedy, selfish men who abuse theirpower. When they stand in a circle and toast themselves by saying, "Tothe North! Where we do what we want!" you can't help but laugh at theridiculousness of it.The biggest surprise of it all is that, despite being very rushed andall over the place, the film drags along a lot. They should have hadmore time to properly explain everything, but even with that belief Iwas still losing interest in a lot of scenes. Overall, just a massivedisappointment after two great films that came before it.

davideo-2 2012-05-20 12:11:29

A bit convoluted, but a decent enough wrap for this series

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning** Sunday Night * Monday Morning It's 1983, and another young girl has gone missing from the same schooland the same area as a girl who was found dead with angel wings nearlyten years earlier. This throws the past and the present together inspectacular fashion, as the family of Michael Mishkin (Daniel Mays),the impaired man accused of the murder all those years ago, asktroubled lawyer John Piggott (Mark Addy) to take his case and help himmount an appeal. The trouble is, Mays confessed and this is hard toappeal against. Instead, Piggott puts pressure on the local police tolook into claims of police brutality and corruption in getting Mays'sconfession. But remorseful Detective Jobson (David Morrison) remembershis partner's unorthodox approach from years ago and tries to putthings right, leading to a devastating conclusion that will shattereverything.Red Riding has been a thinly rewarding show to get involved in. Maybeit's something you need to watch a few times to really pick everythingup, but while it's pleased with itself as an intelligent and originaldrama, it comes off just as much as a confusing and muddled story thatmight have tried to be a little too clever for it's own good. Thisfinal part supposedly wraps everything up, but hardly in a neat andtidy fashion.The concluding part of the whole shebang comes together like a nicelooking car where all the components fall apart once you switch on theengine. While the most important parts seem to have been wrapped upsmoothly, there still feels like a lot of subplots that haven't beentaken care of or that maybe there was too much to take in anyway and bythe end it's all blown your mind a bit. Atmospherically, the show'sexcelled but while the story keeps you glued to the end, it all ends upfeeling like a bit too much style over substance and that's stopped itfrom being a brilliant series and instead an average one. ***

samkan 2012-05-16 09:00:37

The Sun Never Shines In Yorkshire.

Almost literally. In truth there are a few moments featuring outdoorscenes where the sun MIGHT be out amongst clouds, though camera andlighting do their best to avoid such potential charm. And therein arepresented the underlying themes of evil, greed, debauchery, misery,hopelessness and...... did I mention....evil.The Red Riding Trilogy is a five hour adventure into a dark world ofvile corruption, pedophilia, brutality, fear and futility. It iscertainly not without merit. It features police corruption andbrutality as well or better than anything I've viewed. (Example: When amentally deficient character wets his pants upon sight of the cops weunderstand entirely his reaction.) The lead characters, arguably thereare four, are so flawed that they function less as protagonists than asfaint glimmers of humanity. Yet they are genuine to a fault. The bleakhopelessness of the British working class is well supported by thelighting, tinting (its neither color nor B&W) and drab settings. Thereis certainly a story in here somewhere, not so much moved by thecharacters as by the ugliness of human nature and it's ability tooverwhelm the good.Rather than say the RRT would be better pressed into a single featurelength film, the true merits of RRT would be better presented as amulti-part, episodic production more slowly introducing andintermingling the various characters. RRT is certainly more aboutcharacters and their natures, reactions and failings than anythingelse! As I mentioned before, only arguably have we four maincharacters. The story, quite artfully, ebbs and flows re the importanceof and emphasis on certain people. A seemingly minor character is aplot devise at one point, only to be more fully drawn much later. Aneight or ten part RRT, at an hour a shot, would/could provide somethingas engaging as ; e.g., a BBC Dicken's production. Imagine a modern dayBleak House adding drugs, sex, gruesome violence and overwhelming fear.The major problem with RRT is that what we ultimately learn to be thegreat evil has by then become so obscured by characters and emotionsthat it almost gives new definition to anticlimax. There may -or quitepossibly may not - have been sufficient clues, dialog, etc. attendingto the "story" to have made its outcome satisfying. Assuming there wereenough such tips (this is arguable!) by the end of RRT the viewer isfar too exhausted to piece the story together. In a nutshell, thebackbone story/plot takes such a distant backseat to the grittiness,characters and tragedies that it will be long forgotten before RRT'sfears and tears are still remembered.

Rodrigo Amaro 2012-05-15 15:08:16

The best of the Red Riding series

Finally something really, really interesting came out of one of thefilms of this "Red Riding" series. Even dwelling on some known areasthe plot in this third installment gives some surprises, some tensionand some excitement the other flicks didn't have or struggled to makeus interested. Finally connected the stories, revealed the answers forthe mysteries and concluded beautifully. But "Red Riding Hood - In theYear of Our Lord 1983" wouldn't be a film of the franchise withoutconfusing us a little bit. My problem with these "confusion" is thatall of that is a mask to sound and look complicated but when you digdeep into the characters and situations you'll actually find an easierfilm to connect than most serial killer films really are. Without the journalist Eddie Dunford (only through one flashback) andthe investigator of the previous film, this "Red Riding" has two maincharacters trying to solve the case involving the disappearance oflittle girls: it brings back detective Maurice Jobson (David Morrissey)and introduces John Piggott (Mark Addy), a lawyer representing thewrongfully accused of being the killer of some of these girls. WhenPiggott's on scene the movie develops very well but when Jobson segmentis presented sometimes it works (now he's quite soft, not even dealingwell with torture during interrogations of suspects) other times itdoesn't (some of his dramatic moments aren't good enough to make youcare about him, but it is most for the fact I can't stand the actorbehind the role, an bad imitation of Liam Neeson). So here we have twogoals: to find the real killer and the reasons behind it, and torelease innocent people from jail. Again it's a movie about the crimeswithout the need of showing how they happen, but this time we have amore violent film than the two others (specially police's brutality andthe final revelation behind the crimes).This one was far more intelligent than the previous film, it reallycreated thrilling sequences, very surprising and I enjoyed a lot. Itwas less tiring than 1974 and 1980 parts. Mark Addy was brilliant herein a dramatic role, playing this dedicate lawyer. Compared with whatHollywood throws every single year this and the other "Red Riding" areprecious pictures with great quality. It's a decent trilogy. 8/10