buster-39589 Reviews

Merseybeat (2001–2004)

Send them The Bill...

[1/10 · 1 March 2024]

I only vaguely remembered Merseybeat, the BBC's answer to The Bill, and don't recall ever having watched it, so when it popped up on UK Play I thought I'd give it a go.

Bearing in mind that this was a prime time evening show on what was the main BBC channel I was expecting it to be at the very least watchable.

I was wrong.

Right from the outset it lacked promise. The character building was poor, I mean really poor and really hackneyed.

The storylines were weak and the whole production reminded me not so much of The Bill, which by this point had itself become a glossy soap opera pastiche of its former self, but of one of the BBC lunchtime dramas, Doctors springs to mind, designed as background noise for new mothers and the housebound.

To be honest I'm amazed it lasted for as many episodes as it did.

I gave up after 3...

Sons of Summer (2023)

Do you long for a well acted surf-based movie with a great plot?

[1/10 · 13 January 2024]

Because if you do, let me tell you, Sons of Summer isn't it.

Based on the flimsiest of pretexts, four surfers whose fathers were friends 30 years ago decide to go on a road trip together along with a huge quantity of drugs one of them has stolen from a local paint-by-numbers gangster. There's no connection between the characters, the acting is as wooden as their surfboards, the plot has holes you could drive a bus through, the cinematography reminds me of the sort found in Aussie movies from 40 years ago, and the whole thing has the feel of an overly long episode of Home and Away directed by someone who loved Baywatch as a kid.

It's not as if Sons of Summer falls into that "so bad it's good" category, it's just an awful, awful movie.

Blue Lights (2023– )

Daytime Drama with a Primetime Slot

[1/10 · 28 March 2023]

Quite how this ended up being aired in the prime 9pm slot on BBC One mystifies me, it really belongs on just after the lunchtime news.

Firstly, and I'll happily admit that I'm no expert on PSNI, however in common with the depiction of Police Scotland in many such series, here there seem to be a rather high proportion of English officers, and by that I mean even one.

Why does there always have to be a token (or 2) English police officer in shows set in other parts of the UK, is it to "sell" them to that particular audience, or is it to remind us who is in charge?

That gripe aside, the characters in Blue Lights were lightweight, lazily drawn, stereotypical and predictable. The situations they found themselves in, unrealistic verging on comical, and the whole production had a whiff of Doctors, or similar made-for-daytime-tv shows.

The Gold (2023–2024)

This is what happens...

[3/10 · 19 February 2023]

When a twenty-something is put in charge of making sure things are historically accurate.

The story starts in 1983, as they attend the initially robbery scene the police turn up in an unmarked 1985 Ford Granada, a 1986 Ford Transit and a Rover SD1 Mk2 liveried up as a response car...with a sunroof.

Ironically the Rover P6 mentioned by another poster as incorrect due to age was probably one of the few accurate vehicles used, as, believe it or not the Met used them right through to 1987, with one particular 1973 car remaining in service right to the end.

Back at the nick and the vehicular errors continue apace; there are 3 SD1 Rovers, none of which are wearing the correct Minilite alloys fitted to Met cars, but that's just pedantry, as across from them is (again) the flying squad's 1985 Granada, a 1986/7 Ford Orion...and a Rover 200.

The 200 series wasn't launched for another year, and car shown, that was from 1989 at the earliest.

When we get to Fordham's killing in January 1983 his fellow officers turn up in one of Rover SD1 seen earlier only now wearing a C-prefix plate.

A C-prefix does denote 1985-6, however they weren't issued until August that year, so even a near new police car would be on a B-suffix at the latest.

The final vehicular mismatch comes near the end, when Gordon Parry flees in his 700 series Volvo - he jumps into the Volvo, but the interior shots are obviously of a far more modern 3 door car.

Cars aside, there are numerous other errors, for example, it wasn't Mickey McAvoy who had dogs called Brinks and Mat, it was Kenneth Noye, whether that was changed just as poetic licence or whether it was down to poor research is really difficult to say.

The final straw for me though wasn't car related, it was the scene where Boyce returns to the police station to find it unguarded and, with his witness at risk, enlists the help of the one officer there to stand with him out on the front steps of the station, where we see the would be assassins drive slowly by.

I couldn't stop laughing - the scene is lifted in almost it's entirety from The Godfather, presumably again the 20-somethings in charge assumed no-one has ever seen the movie.

There was so much potential to do this properly, yet it was wasted for the sake of 5 minutes on Google, I'd recommend watching the 1993 tv movie starting Sean Bean as McAvoy, Fool's Gold, instead...

Hargrave (2020)

If I learned anything from Hargrave...

[1/10 · 7 March 2022]

It's that apparently you can film and edit an entire tv show on an iPhone.

I'm assuming the iPhone in question wasn't purchased specifically to shoot this series, as that would have taken the budget to the heady heights of including three digits.

The colour space, obviously meant to be "noir" jumped about all over the place, one frame it's a desaturated b/w, then suddenly there are hints of colour, and then suddenly a sepia.

These issues paled into insignificance compared to the scriptwriting and acting, both of which were just appalling. I really cannot convey just how dire both the script and the delivery are.

All in all, Hargrave has to be possibly the most amateurish rubbish I have ever had the misfortune to sit through, it really is just appallingly bad.

No Return (2022)

Soapy bubble...

[3/10 · 15 February 2022]

A family populated with unlikeable characters go on holiday, there's a incident...

Trouble for me was, by the time the alleged incident occurs, which is only minutes into the first episode, I no longer cared what happened.

I persevered, purely because Sheridan Smith always gives good value, however her character, along with pretty much every other, was so deeply unlikeable as to be impossible to empathise with.

The side drama involving Smith's character's sister was utterly pointless and appeared to be there solely to pad the story out to fill four hours.

A shame really, the potential was there for a gripping drama, instead what we ended up with was something that would have been more suited to a four episode Eastenders/Coronation Street storyline.

The Killing (2011–2014)

Lost in translation...

[3/10 · 5 February 2022]

I tried to like this, I really did, however like many American remakes of European shows before it, the writers have ruined it when altering to suit a US audience.

In the the Danish original the lead character is slightly socially awkward, however this subtlety has been removed for the American version, her US compatriot is simply unpleasant.

A similar criticism can be levied at her sidekick, and he comes across as another you really wouldn't want to spend an evening with.

If you're an American who cannot get along with subtitles then you may well enjoy this, for everyone else there is the far superior Danish original.

CI5: The New Professionals (1998–1999)

Actually...

[5/10 · 3 February 2022]

It's not as bad as it could have been.

I was expecting it to be utterly unwatchable, however, surprisingly, it was really not a great deal worse than the original.

Rules of the Game (2022)

A mess.

[2/10 · 19 January 2022]

The key to a good drama is allowing the viewer to build up a relationship with the characters, unfortunately this show fails in the this most basic of tasks.

Not one of the characters is even remotely likeable, and the whole thing comes across like an episode of Doctors, but with swearing and sexual references thrown in to make it appear "edgy".

To Be Someone (2020)

Fraudrophenia

[1/10 · 11 December 2021]

I remember this being touted as some sort of sequel to Quadrophenia.

It is, of course, nothing of the sort, what it is is a third rate wannabe Guy Ritchie gangster movie with some scooters thrown in.

Is it still worth watching though?

No, it's utter, utter drivel and genuinely best avoided.

Unit Eleven (2020)

Utterly, utterly awful

[1/10 · 28 October 2021]

I really wanted to like this film; a made-on -a-shoestring budget British flick which attempts to emulate the 80s vibe of likes of Escape From New York.

The trouble is, it's just awful, and I mean, really, really mind numbingly bad. Again, I love "bad" movies, but Unit Eleven takes the concept to a whole new level.

The production values are, predictably, low, however I suspect a little care taken in post and some colour grading would have helped enormously, although it wouldn't have made up for the high school acting or the comedy makeup.

In a time when it is relatively simple and fairly cheap to produce quality film work, the many excellent YouTube videos out there being a perfect example, to come out with something which would be barely acceptable in an HND Media Studies class beggars belief, though not as much as the fact it ended up on Amazon Prime.