Just got round to seeing this as I was always been fascinated by the horrible murder of Sasha Litvinenko. The adverts for this at the time showed a lot of the superb David Tennent, yet dissapointingly for me, his talents are only featured in the first episode. The acting from some of the cast is also a little subpar & the story telling is quite slow in places, but overall this is a reasonable, watchable drama.
If you are looking to watch this as a way of discovering some of Mr Litvinenko's fascinating background, I feel you will be sadly dissapointed. The story mostly revolves around the British police investigation into the poisoning & the potential effects such a poisoning could have had on the safety & security of Britain. This is essentially a police drama, & dispite the title, it is not a biography of this intelligent but tragic man. However the title gives us the impression that this drama would revolve around Mr Litvinenko himself, but it dosen't. This is such a shame.
In my honest opinion David Tennent should have featured in more than one episode, as his acting in this role is absolutely sublime. Even his Russian accent is near perfect. His part in this drama really show cases his awesome talent at playing all kinds of eclectic characters, effortlessly. I feel his talent is almost wasted in this here, which is sad. That said, however, if you enjoy a true to life police drama, you will certainly enjoy this, but be prepared for a superb first two episodes, yet the second two are something of a let down. Lastly if you are going to make a drama about a real life event & have the main character name in the title, at least make the drama more centred on that character, because "Litvinenko" is not about the man, himself, but rather the investigation that follows after his very tragic death. 5 stars for David Tennent. You are a credit to you're proffession sir x.
If you are looking to watch this as a way of discovering some of Mr Litvinenko's fascinating background, I feel you will be sadly dissapointed. The story mostly revolves around the British police investigation into the poisoning & the potential effects such a poisoning could have had on the safety & security of Britain. This is essentially a police drama, & dispite the title, it is not a biography of this intelligent but tragic man. However the title gives us the impression that this drama would revolve around Mr Litvinenko himself, but it dosen't. This is such a shame.
In my honest opinion David Tennent should have featured in more than one episode, as his acting in this role is absolutely sublime. Even his Russian accent is near perfect. His part in this drama really show cases his awesome talent at playing all kinds of eclectic characters, effortlessly. I feel his talent is almost wasted in this here, which is sad. That said, however, if you enjoy a true to life police drama, you will certainly enjoy this, but be prepared for a superb first two episodes, yet the second two are something of a let down. Lastly if you are going to make a drama about a real life event & have the main character name in the title, at least make the drama more centred on that character, because "Litvinenko" is not about the man, himself, but rather the investigation that follows after his very tragic death. 5 stars for David Tennent. You are a credit to you're proffession sir x.