pfgpowell-1 Reviews

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Too glacial, frankly, even though it is said to be 'art'. You are warned

[5/10 · 14 April 2024]

Let's get the good bits out of the way first, though I must tread carefully, as going by many reviews here, Leone's film is apparently cinematic perfection. So many will regard my views as philistine sacrilege. But I'll give them any way.

Carrying on with his 'more realistic depiction' of the West which he began with A Fistful Of Dollars in 1964, Once Upon A Time is miles away from the sanitised and quite ludicrous West that Hollywood favoured in its 1950s films.

In Tinseltown's West, the main characters always wore laundry-clean and seemingly freshly pressed shirts and trousers, their pistols sparkled, they always found time to shave every morning (though off-camera) and the women were good-hearted folk made up to the nines. Where they got their lipstick and eye-shadow from is anyone's guess.

Leone changed all that and Once Upon A Time follows the same aesthetic, though I suspect it is just as phoney as the former clean-cut Tinseltown version. In Leone's West squalor is almost de rigueur, and you can almost smell the chacters, which suggests he rather overshot his mark.

Another 'good bit' is the cinematography which really does become a feast for the eyes, although like much else in the film it does overstay its welcome.

The acting? Well, as Leone shot with American and Italian actors, each speaking their lines in their own language, there is not a great deal of dialogue and a great deal of dubbing. And a great deal of that acting is distressingly two-dimensional the actors can't be blamed: they are doing simply as they are directed. The 'plot' is nothing much out of the ordinary, either.

I must remind myself, though, to be charitable as Leone's westerns were very much of their age and very much the product of an Italian sensibility which, 55 years ago when we first came across it in the English-speaking still novel world and gained many points for being novel. Fifty-five years on, the crows' feet are showing, however.

In an interview with Britain's Sunday Times about making his biopic about Abraham Lincoln, Steven Spielberg said something like 'I felt I had to wear a suit and tie when making that film', and apparently he did.

Usually togged out in jeans and a baseball cap, Spielberg claimed he wanted to be 'part of the finery of that era'. As 'that era' also saw four years of a very bloody civil war in which half a million men were slaughtered, it might not have all been as fine as Spielberg implies.

Reading between the lines, the not-so-subtle suggestion from Spielberg was that as Lincoln was more or less THE American saint, it demanded that he be treated as such, so only wearing a suit and tie would do while he made his film. I don't doubt that had it been practical he might well have directed the whole shebang down on his knees, but - well, it would not have been practical.

Something similar goes on when many consider and review Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West. He is one of the 'greats' of the film world, it seems, and not to toe the line is decidedly infra dig. OK, the Dollar films stand out, but even by the time he made The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, ol' Sergio was - to be blunt - recycling rather too much and going over old ground.

His famous stand-off routine where we get a close-up of faces, then eyes looking from one to the other as 'tension mounts' was impressive the first time you saw it, but was and is increasingly unimpressive with each subsequent outing.

We got more than a decent helping in The Good etc, and we are served up even more of it in Once Upon A Time. And, frankly, it becomes bloody tedious indeed: You've seen five such stand-offs and you've seen three too many. It no longer 'adds to tension' but contributes more mundanely to boredom.

Ol' Sergio also resorts far, far, far too much 'artistic' longuers, scenes being drawn out for several increasingly dull minutes for no reason except, as far as I can see, to imply 'meaning'. And that in my book is as close to faking it as a respected filmmaker dare get.

Other reviewers describe the film as 'art' and as 'operatic'. I don't disagree, except I am bound to remind the world that 'art' comes in three flavours - good art, mediocre art and bad art. And for my money the 'art' in Leone's subsequent post-Dollar films varies between mediocre and bad.

As for 'operatic', that word, too, is used to suggest grandeur, quality and something of which we should be in awe. Well, forget it. At the end of the day there is a great deal less than meets the eye in Once Upon A Time In The West.

Leone's original film was 186 minutes long. Paramount cut its version by 40 minutes. I suggest what the chap really needed was a very competent, sympathetic but honest and ruthless editor. Cutting the film by at least half might have produced a better film.

There, I've done it, I've insulted one of the saints of 'contemporary cinema'. Well, someone had to. Incidentally, the same criticism applies to Terrence Malick The Thin Red Line. It, too, is 'revered' as 'art' but it, too, is mutton dressed as lamb.

Scoop (2024)

Remember it is 'based on real events' but excellent for that

[7/10 · 8 April 2024]

Scoop, the Netflix account - well, the Netflix version - of the BBC Newsnight interview with British royal stuff shirt and pal of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and how it came about, is a great watch. But it does come - from me, at least - with a few caveats.

As I have called it a great watch I should explain why I caution. It is first and foremost a piece of commercial drama. It is not a documentary, and lets be honest, there is something at odds about every drama-doc.

The piece is preceded by what is now a standard warning: this film is based on real events - however certain elements have been fictionalised for dramatic purposes. And I don't doubt, if nothing else, Netflix legal department will have insisted on that being made clear.

The obvious question is: which elements have been fictionalised and how much has been fictionalised? I am not at all suggesting it's all a tissue of lies, but I am pointing out the we, the Great Unwashed, the bums which must be put on seats, are always more inclined to believe the legend than the facts.

A few years ago, the Tinseltown film U-571, another effort 'based on real events' described how stouthearted US submariners captured the World War II Nazi German enigma film.

It, too, contained certain elements fictionalised for dramatic purposes, though in this case the whole plot was fictionalised: thed Yanks had damn all to do with cracking the enigma code or anything like that. Ergo: caveat observator - always!

That preamble, though, is just a friendly warning: as far as Scoop is concerned, this might well be how it all happened and I have not reason to doubt it is not pretty close to the truth. But at the end of the day it is commercial drama produced, in the long run, to ring the tills and it is still fiction.

Having said that everyone involved gets top marks: Rufus Sewell, Billie Piper, Keeley Hawes, Gillian Anderson and the rest of the cast and production team. As far as I am concerned it doesn't put a foot wrong.

It is based on the book about scooping the interview with Andrew by the Newsnight producer who swung it, and the film pretty much is from her point of view. There's nothing wrong with that, but that is another factor which should be remembered.

But overall, top marks all round.

Snatch (2000)

Another helping of great, AAA+++ Guy Ritchie nonsense, better than many films

[8/10 · 26 March 2024]

I've said it before in another review of one of Guy Ritchies films, you either like them a lot or you hate them a lot. There is nothing vanilla about Ritchie. Me? I'm a sucker for them (well, most of them - I wasn't too taken by his King Arthur effort, but that's for another time).

In one way Ritchie, more or less, tends to make the same film. Each has a slightly different 'story' but who cares: it's a great film and you go away - metaphorically as I've just watched this on Netflix lying in bed - after a lot of enjoyment.

There's an irrepressible energy about a Guy Ritchie film, a dark humour and more then enough Brit-style jokes to entertain most of us. That, of course, if you like his films, but I've already admitted that I do.

This one is his standard convoluted mash-up of about ten plots which all somehow fit together and are all somehow resolved. It's all presented in a - well, I was going to write 'punk' style, but there's more than a touch of sophistication in his direction and cinematography, so 'punk' would be wholly misleading.

But what the hell. You either know what I'm talking about or you don't and if you do, you either love it or you don't. If you do, go for it. If you don't I can't see you and I mixing much socially, either.

Oh, should perhaps mention that it features several of Ritchie's stalwarts but also no a few top-class Hollywood names, and they are not about to lend their talents for any old nonsense. And they don't.

Griselda (2024)

Excellent - well-handled and far better than much of its kind

[8/10 · 14 February 2024]

I read that the series producers took some liberties with the facts about Griselda Blanco, and that is usually not a good sign. But thankfully there is no grandstanding in this Netflix series, no phoney set-pieces, no posturing, although it is certainly full of action.

Perhaps, to be on the safe side we should regard this version of Griselda Blanco's rise and fall as the Miami coke capo more as fiction than fact, but that risks doing it an injustice.

In fact, in one sense it would be wrong to regard this six-parter as just the latest 'narco drama'. It certainly is that, but it is far more than that. Without sounding to silly, I suggest this series is more along the lines of a tragedy than just another piece of coke-dealing schlock.

Griselda was no saint but she got a very rough deal in a very macho, misogynistic world. Her main weapons were her pride, cunning and a determination not to give in. Oh, and a very lethal ruthlessness.

She begins to outwit the men one way or another but then it all goes to her head. She also makes the very silly mistake of indulging in her own merchandise too much and becomes murderously paranoid.

That's the story. As for the production, writing, acting and direction, it is top-notch. I'll repeat (and I hope I don't sound stupid) this is a very human story, and it's not that the grandstanding is kept to a minimum, it's that there is none at all.

The characters, from Griselda herself, her two main henchman - both also utterly ruthless - to the female detective are three-dimensional and believable.

The detective in one way is a kind of counterweight to Griselda, but on the other side of the law. She too has to contend with very nasty misogyny but she is also a proud and strong woman who refuses to give in to macho creeps.

You might well have seen this series. If you haven't and are checking out opinions, my advice is to go for it as one of the best of its kind I've seen for some time.

The Stranger (I) (2020)

Promises much, then settles for thriller template #9

[5/10 · 23 January 2024]

I seem to say what I am about to write rather often, perhaps rather too often. But whether you think The Stranger is 'great' or - well take a look above at my 'headline' - finally depends upon what you expect.

The Stranger starts well and carries on well and we can expect something rather good. But then, over the last two episodes, especially the final episode, it oddly deflates and becomes just another piece of TV 'thriller' drama by numbers.

It's as though there are several templates for this kind of piece and each is used in rotation. The 'denouement' (and, yes, I did look up the spelling because I always get it wrong) was flat, almost predictable and pitiful.

Why that ending, that 'denouement' was tagged on to a series which promised so much in the first four episodes I can't think.

There are so many loose ends, plot holes and slightly ridiculous developments in the last two instalments that it would be futile to list them here (and I also want to be able to tick the 'no spoilers' box).

Overall, buyer beware: this does not deliver what you think it might, not least because - a perennial bugbear of mine - the folk in the drama, as here, don't act, speak and behave like people we know but the act, speak and behave like folk in a TV drama.

Overall a 7.3? As I say, it comes down to what you respect and think is 'good'. From me this is getting a 5. Oh, well. Try something else.

Feedback (2023)

Outstanding - watch it if only to find out why

[9/10 · 18 January 2024]

Feedback is perhaps one of the best, if not the best series I've seen for quite some time. It is thoroughly honest.

I don't know how it is billed, whether as a 'thriller' or as a 'drama', but whatever it is, it pulls it off. But even saying that doesn't do it justice. That makes it sound as though it is just another piece of entertainment, and it is not that, by no means.

It's about alcoholism, self-hate, inability to communicate, family dynamics, love, all kinds of things. Best of all there's nothing 'clever-clever' about it at all: as I say it is thoroughly honest and that is very rare, even in films which try to be honest.

Perhaps I haven't made Feedback sound very attractive. Certainly it is sad, but part of its achievement is that it conveys hope in a very unexpected way. All I can do is recommend it and you can take it from their.

One word of warning: it would not be much appreciated by anyone who thinks Suits or Sex And The City acme of TV and streaming. If that is you, Feedback is most certainly not the series for you.

Detective Forst (2024– )

Hmm. Perhaps a little too much style swamps the content

[6/10 · 16 January 2024]

The latest offering from Netflix Polski (or whatever they call themselves) offers something of a dilemma. Forst is the filming of a novel about a 'renegade / maverick' - aren't they all? - detective, the eponymous Forst, and I, for one, suspect that there are crucial elements in the novel which either didn't make it to the series or perhaps could not make it.

In short, in a sense the sum of its parts just don't make it into a whole. We are left to choose: is this 'a thriller', 'a psycho-drama' investigating childhood trauma or perhaps, least likely of all, an 'art film' masquerading as a thriller. Whichever it is - and I'm not at all sure - it leaves just a little to be desired.

Because I prefer to avoid giving spoilers in my reviews rather than tick the 'spoilers' box, I must tread carefully, but I shall do my best. But, frankly, Forst jumps the shark rather too often. Sometimes that doesn't matter - as we say 'it's not the joke, it's the telling of the joke'. But with Forst unfortunately it does matter.

Forst kicks off with two highly unusual murders, which are both so elaborate the staging of the bodies could not have been achieved by just one person. Then Forst is introduced and I have to say he doesn't really come across as the 'maverick' we are invited to accept that he is.

There follow, in the each of the six episodes of the series, a number of initially obscure elements (and perhaps I am a tad thick), but one or three remained more than a little obscure when the final scene faded to black. Another unfortunate development is that the 'plot' or whatever one wants to call it makes 90 degree turn in the last two episodes and although both 'plots' are seemingly related, none of it is too convincing and the connection between them is not at all clear. Perhaps it will all come a little clearer in 'the second series'.

Then there's the cinematography and the soundtrack: both are more than intriguing and interesting, but neither is 'relevant'. In fact, both are in many ways what is 'best' about the series but both add to a suspicion that Forst is rather too much style and not enough content. And again I am left with the impression that cinematography, especially all that weird camera angled stuff and music borrowing heavily from electronica do the heavy lifting in a great many films.

Take away either, especially 'wacky' soundtrack and that 'thrilling', horror or mystifying scene pretty much doesn't stack up. Both before the function - as here in Forst - of informing the viewer 'right this is the frightening bit'. Taking out the garbage or going down the shop can seem 'mysterious', 'horrifying' or 'thrilling' if you slap a soundtrack on the footage of the deed.

I'm stymied in my comments by my stated commitment not to include spoilers, but I can say that when the final scene does fade to black, there are more than enough loose ends - and not just that final scene - to irritate.

As I say, in many ways Forst is the triumph of style over content. That is fair enough if that is your bag and it often is for me. But I do get the feeling Forst is playing both ends agains the middle and wanting its cake and eating it. Sadly, something doesn't quite come off. That's a shame, but that's as it is.

At the time of writing this has a 5.6 rating on IMdB. That might be misleading: Forst is a great ride, but somehow, though, ita doesn't quite deliver.

The Recruit (2022– )

Great series which intrigues, entertains and amuses in equal measure

[8/10 · 2 January 2024]

After Succession ended and I'd seen Ozarks, I was at a loose end as to streaming (though I saw Succession twice and plan to watch Ozarks again, too).

I tried The Gilded Age - despite knowing it was a Downton Abbey spin-off - and soon decided that like Downton it was not for me at all. I attempted The Spy, but that too failed at the fourth episode. Then I hit upon The Recruit on Netflix and I can recommend it. I'll explain why.

In common with both Succession and Ozarks, it is intelligently made, confident and it deftly avoids the usual schlock and pitfalls series of its kind might easily fall into. OK, it is not of the same genre as Succession, but it in some ways it is first cousin to Ozarks in as far as despite the usual demand to suspend disbelief, you do so and you do so willingly.

In short it has none of the standard flaws which make rather too many 'more modern' streaming series insufferable. As an example let me cite Suits and Billions, two highly popular series with many fans, but which I gave up on within 15 minutes after one too many phoney lines of dialogue and oh-so-familiar tropes.

You can look up 'the set-up' of The Recruit elsewhere and that - young lawyer joins the CIA legal department and little by little gets sucked into a ridiculous situation involving a ruthless female Belarusian ex-mafia woman - is certainly fantastical.

But - here I shall use a strange word in this context - everything about The Recruit is curiously 'real': there is none of that grandstanding we get all too often (especially in 'spy' drama and which I loathe), and how the plot develops is not forced in any way. It evolves and you accept how it evolves. And that is down to good writing which does not spoon-feed the viewer.

There is also a very definite seam of very funny humour running through it all which works well, but The Recruit is certainly not a comedy.

All I can say is if you are reading this with a view to watching it or not, go for it. You will not be disappointed. It has already been green-lit for a second series and the final scene in the final episode sets it up well. Recommended.

UFO (2018)

One for the nerds (and I'm not a nerd)

[5/10 · 22 December 2023]

UFO is one of those films which seems to be more than it really is. It isn't just the incessant - to coin a word - 'mathemising' which is borderline fake, it's the fact that it relies rather too heavily on incomprehension to appear 'gripping'.

OK, I watched until the end but I have no shame in admitting I was baffled by it all. And I would bet my bottom dollar that pretty much everyone else is, too, even those who choose to persuade themselves that the 'understand' it quite well. No you don't.

Equally as unconvincing is our hero - I assume the supposed maths genius at the centre of it all is 'the film's hero - being obsessed with the appearance of a UFO because when he was seven or eight he saw one and Mommy didn't believe him. Oh dear.

I don't doubt UFO has it's champions, but if you haven't yet seen it and are reading up reviews to see whether it is worth 90 minutes of your time, be warned that there is less, perhaps a great deal less, to it all than meets the eye.

As for the appearance of The X Files Gillian Anderson in a supporting role, all I can suggest is that having a 'name' attached to a film otherwise featuring 'non-names' will have secured the necessary finance. Otherwise I can't for the life of me see why she bothered.

Yours sincerely, Underwhelmed of Tunbridge Wells (a joke only Brits would get and probably not even many of them).

Vigil (2021– )

Frankly, the standard BBC mash-up - lazy and cheesy

[4/10 · 20 December 2023]

As I want to make sure I don't give away any spoilers, I must be careful here and not reveal any plot details. But I can say that elsewhere the 'crime's' central theme has aroused the ire of many. I can't say why, however.

What has aroused my ire, though, is not that aspect of it - which might be described as quasi-political, but one small detail, a detail which in a sense highlights why Vigil 2 (as we must call it) is just more of the same tired old cliched 'thriller' rubbish.

I set the word 'thriller' in quote marks because there is nothing at all 'thrilling' about Vigil 2 - every potential 'thriller' aspect of the piece is fake, artificial, pedestrian and predictable.

That small detail is the sheer disservice Vigil 2 does to women in the police force: I have nothing at all against having the show's two protagonists in a same-sex relationship. In fact, it's refreshing that such can now be shown so clearly. But even there the BBC can't play it straight and opts to play both sides against the middle.

On the one hand we are presented with two adult women, both of rank in the police force and both portrayed as being not just capable but good at their jobs. On the other hand those two women are at times shown to be on the point of tears and emotional, just the kind of cartoonish portrayal which we thought might be long buried.

An added irony is that this lazy regression of type is wholly at odds with the, supposedly 'modern' central theme of the crime which I have described above as political.

As for the six episodes themselves, be very prepared to suspend all disbelief and then swallow a great deal of nonsense: the plotting, dialogue and direction of Vigil 2 are the kind of two-dimensional fare we were served up several decades ago.

Everyone turns up in the nick of time. Folk travel some distances within a short time, Coincidence plays a large part in it all. There is about as much subtlety about the scripting as there is in an episode of The Teletubbies. Folk escape from desperate situations with complete ease. And on it goes, lazy, lazy, writing and direction.

Perhaps most egregious is the continual exposition of the plot in dialogue so that the viewer 'knows what's going on'. That was a trope from crime drama 40 years ago. Other producers have long given up on it, but lazily the BBC sticks to 'the old ways'.

As for that plot, the denouement is as convoluted as only a piece of would-be clever TV drama can be: it is cobblers, frankly, and that is being kind.

Vigil 2 like Vigil 1 will certainly get its champions. Here on IMdB it is given an overall average 7.4. Well, that is down to your expectations. If you are quite happy with bog-standard 'thrillers' of the kind you have seen time and time again, to for it.

If you want a mystery which does treat the viewer with intelligence and discernment, you really are better off with The Teletubbies.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Nice try for what it is, but really that isn't much. Sorry

[5/10 · 13 December 2023]

For a low-budget indie film this is well-made and many might describe it as sweet. But for this Brit the saccharine began to pall a little early on. The music doesn't help much on that score. There's also that you wonder what it is all about.

I suspect we are meant to draw some kind of parallel between the 'nutty' would-be time traveller and the superficially cynical magazine writer, both of whom 'go back' - or better in the case of the time traveller intend to go back - to a lost love. But frankly I can't make the connections.

The 'twist' at the end when we get to meet the girl the time traveller loved but who supposedly died and who he wants to see again also confuses the issue rather too much.

And who were 'the spooks' and what part do they play in the tale? I don't demand 'everything should be spelled out', but a little coherence would help. As it is they are just a useful plot device. So who knows and I am obliged to add who cares?

This film gets some marks for being a low-budget indie film that doesn't come over as a low-budget indie film. There is nothing 'cheap' about it at all. On the other hand it achieves very little - apart from entertaining so some extent - and punches slightly above its weight.

Really, at the end of the day it is hard to know quite what to make of it.

The Spy (2019)

This could and should have been so much better

[5/10 · 12 December 2023]

Israeli writer, director and producer Gideon Raff's The Spy is ostensibly an account of the hugely useful work done by Israel's 1960's spy Eli Cohen.

To some extent it broadly - very broadly - is that. In fact, it sadly soon becomes just another 'spy drama' of the ilk we have seen time and again.

It intrigues to begin with when Sacha Baron Cohen's incarnation of Eli Cohen is eventually hired by Mossad to infiltrate Syria's high military and political high command.

Mossad set Cohen up with a complex false identity as an ex-patriate Syrian who life had determined had never been to his homeland Syria. He begins his cover existence in Buenos Aires, which apparently had a thriving Arab community in the first stage of his ploy to get into Syria.

It is there that Raff's drama soon ceases being an intriguing drama-doc and becomes just another piece of schlock spy drama, one which applies its brushstrokes with the subtlety of a house painter and disbelief can no longer be suspended.

We get more than one too many 'spying tropes' and 'exciting close calls' for the mini-series to command much respect. That is a definite shame because the real-life Cohen, an intelligent and resourceful man whose great work was invaluable to Israel in the Six-Day War was a fascinating figure.

The Spy might satisfy some, perhaps many, but at the end of the day it reduces itself to just another mediocre streaming mini-series.

The irony is that the tough life of Cohen's wife who has no idea what he is doing and accepts his absence wholly despite the strain of raising to young children on her own plays in counterpoint to Cohen's life of derring-do in Damascus is dramatically more interesting than the clockwork 'spy's life' which forms most of the mini-series.

The whole thing boils down to middle-brow entertainment trumping what might have been a far better drama.

The Little Things (2021)

Great start but it then gets very lost indeed

[6/10 · 6 December 2023]

John Lee Hancock's The Little Things - he both wrote the screenplay and eventually directed it - is something of an oddity. It seems not quite to be able to make up its mind what it is.

Is it a 'art-house' style 'think piece'? Intermittent scenes, the puzzling career of Denzel Washington's LA detective - and we are led to believe in his time a good one - and the film's final 20 minutes suggest it was casting envious eyes in that direction. But - well, it doesn't quite get there at all.

Further hints - and as they are so slight maybe that should only be 'hintettes' - that we are watching 'art' rather than 'a conventional thriller' are conveyed by Jared Leto's 'villain who might, in fact, not be 'a villain' at all. Well, fancy! One of those arty films', eh, and no doubt it won prizes in obscure Scandinavian film festivals or should have done. Who knows?

On the other hand rather too many other aspects of the film suggest nothing more outlandish than an off-beat thriller a la Seven with the kind of police procedural shenanigans we all love so much (or apparently, it depends on how well it is done for me to love them).

What we can say is that - the ever dependable - Denzel Washington and the always slightly bonkers Jared Leto do give us enough bangs for our bucks, which makes it all the more of a shame that at the end of the day the film can't quite make up its mind what kind of film it is, or wanted to be, or wants the viewers to think it is or . . .

I'm one of those who would gladly pay top dollar to watch Denzel Washington recite a New York subway timetable: he most certainly has that ingredient X and is able to add it to every film he turns up in. Why that should be and how he achieves it, I'll leave for others to talk about. Me, I just think he does and I'm quite happy with that.

Rami Malek also turns in a good shift, but like the film itself quite what his character is up to and what drives him on - which in the context of the film is relevant - is so obscure that it's irritating. Either way, and within the confines of the script, Malek does deliver.

That, though, is just half the story: it's not that The Little Things is frustrating in its, frankly, final lack of identity, its just that the very lack of identity almost seems to cheat us, the viewers, out of a film. What HAVE we seen?

I've been careful here not to describe the 'plot' in any way so that I can click 'no' when I'm asked whether my review contains 'spoilers'. But I can say that it deals with - or purports to deal with - a serial killer who targets hookers. To add to the confusion one victim, apparently, was not a hooker.

Yet it turns out that is not what the film 'is about' at all. To make matters worse, it is not at all clear exactly what the film 'IS about'. I have no idea. After a reasonable straightforward build-up - a rather interesting, watchable and suspenseful build-up at that - it all takes a left turn and we are left with more mysteries at the end than what we started with.

Furthermore - and bearing in mind my self-imposed restriction to avoid spoilers - the actions and behaviour of at least three of the characters are unusual to say the least and, frankly inexplicable.

And, to call a spade a spade, that is as close to cheating as it is possible to get without calling it cheating.

Th Little Things should get a 5/10, but given other good aspects of the film, not least Denzel Washington and Jared Leto's turns, I'm giving it a 6/10.

The White Queen (2013)

Teeters on the edge of being wholly ridiculous pretty much from the off

[4/10 · 4 December 2023]

I find the history of the Plantagenet dynasty of English kings particularly interesting, and I was looking forward to watch the series The White Queen. Sadly, as all too often, series has the dead hand of BBC drama all over it.

I have no idea why, but the BBC - once known in England as Aunty - seems never to know any better than to make do with flat, middle-brow, 'audience-informing dialogue and acting under the direction of flat, middle-brow boilerplate direction.

Even though we can't necessarily hope for historical accuracy, we are at least entitled to hope for - I don't say expect - reasonably intelligent drama. The White Queen is not it.

Almost from the opening scene it teeters on being wholly ridiculous. I don't doubt that some will find it satisfying to watch and will disagree with me entirely.

Well, good luck to them. Me, I'm off to find something a little less average and a little less predictable.

Rounders (1998)

Demands rather too much disbelief to be swallowed

[5/10 · 25 November 2023]

The thing about rather a lot of Hollywood films is that whatever the set-up, whether it's cops and robbers, horror film, sci-fi, rom-com or simply rom, or as here, a decent lad who's a great poker player but takes a wrong move, they always follow a template. Always.

The good guys win, the hero bests the aliens, the boy gets the girl and, as here, the decent poker-playing lad survives. Always.

Admittedly, that's what the punters want, and any directors and producers who don't give the punters what they want - measured by box office take - will find themselves gradually directing or producing fewer and fewer films.

Fair enough, but for some of us 'sticking to the template' can lead to somewhat boring and mediocre films and which are often shot through with a certain kind of phoniness and fakery.

Oscar Wilde observed that 'sentimentality is the bank holiday of cynicism' and the slavish, obligatory adherence to 'the template' embraces the kind of sentimentality which, frankly, is not too far off going ga-ga over sweet, fluffy little kittens.

So despite all the tough technical talk and cool poker slang, Rounders is just one more piece of sentimental Hollywood guff. And it contains rather too much phoniness and fakery.

So we get - though a version of - 'the hero comes good', 'a wise old father figure', 'a baddie who - sort of - gets his comeuppance', 'the through thick and thin loyalty to a childhood friend' and so on.

It's all there, all laid out to be scooped and sucked up with the popcorn and Coke, a leading to the final glow that 'after all everything is fine with the world'.

As Wilde said 'sentimentality is the bank holiday of cynicism' but, hey, don't spoil the party. But I can't get over all the fake elements.

The 'childhood friendship' between Mike and Worm is wholly unconvincing; the romance between Mike and Jo with that cosy little hint at the end that they might still get back together again is equally unconvincing, as is the schlock wisdom of the elderly father figure who lends our hero $10,000 to help save his bacon.

All of it is fake. The film's 'cool' dribble of poker terms and poker slang might all be technically correct, but it's fake. Why the supposedly canny expert poker player Mike is so blind to what an idiotic loser his 'schoolboy friend' Worm has become is too much to swallow. And I just can't swallow it.

Rounders' redeeming features are the acting of Matt Damon and Edward Norton (who in my book are always worth checking out) and the turns by John Turturro and Michael Rispoli, though film also almost loses on points with the 0h-so-ham portrayal by John Malkovich of a 'Russian gangster'.

Malkovich gives the phrase chewing up the carpet a new meaning. His turn is so ridiculous, it's as though it is from another film.

The Gilded Age: Let the Tournament Begin (2022) Season 1, Episode 9

A grand oppotunity utterly missed, nothing but middle-brow pap

[5/10 · 25 November 2023]

I left an IMDb review of the first episode of The Gilded Age in which I conceded that like a soap opera, toffee and watching heroic fails on YouTube, this streaming drama has a certain more-ish quality despite your better judgment.

I have now watched all of the first series, and I should report that I haven't changed my view at all: that it is far, far more of a miss than a hit. Nice try but certainly no cigar, not even a cheap smoke that the posh folk in The Gilded Age would turn their noses up on.

With all ten episodes of that first season under my belt, I have more to go on, but, frankly, the same thoughts keep running through my mind of which, perhaps, the main one is that The Gilded Age is a grand opportunity missed by a country mile.

It was Mark Twain who described the last three decades of the 19th century - and, I suppose, the first few years of the 20th century - as 'a gilded age', and it should be pointed out that he did not intend it as a compliment: 'Gilt', as in 'gilded' is fake gold, that is it is not quite the real thing.

HBO might have chosen to present us with a more intelligent portrayal of 'the gilded age'. Instead it chose to produce a fluffy, middle-brow, low-powered, often quite cliched drama that is essentially indistinguishable from all the fluffy, middle-brow, low-powered often quite cliched drama that historically - one might even say traditionally - has been churned out my American TV producers.

The puzzle is why? HBO has a proud track record of going one or two better than the opposition: no longer being subject to the dual tyranny of advertisers and ratings (and the parasitic relationship between the two) because of its subscriber model, it became the trailblazer for a new kind of TV drama - intelligent, innovative, imaginative and well-written drama. The Gilded Age is none of these things.

I suspect the core of this misadventure is allowing British writer and Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes to write the scripts for the first season. In fact, perhaps Fellowes should not have been allowed anywhere near the show.

Our Julian, or to give him his full name Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford, not only had a good education - Ampleforth and Cambridge (me The Oratory School, an Ampleforth rival, and Dundee University, in its previous incarnation as Queen's College St Andrews part of an Oxbridge rival, but he can certainly distinguish between the correct fish knife and the correct sherry schooner.

Want to know in which social circles it is infra dig to fart? Julian can certainly tell you. But despite all those silver spoons stuck in his mouth, he refuses to write one line of cliched and stale dialogue where ten will do. Our Julian gives new meaning to 'clunky'.

Given the expensive sets, costumes and the number of extras - and I have no idea how much of all this was computer-generated, though quite possibly some of the dialogue was - why did HBO not follow its usual practice of hiring the best of the best writers? It has used them well in the past.

Perhaps Jules agreed to HBO making the series (and HBO took it over from NBC) on the strict understanding that only he would write the series, or at least the first season. I don't know, if that's true, but it's possible and would explain much.

None of the storylines has a great deal of substance at all and all the characters are two-dimensional and stock fare. The train crash which might have ruined 'robber baron' George Russell, the romantic predicament and shock of nice but naive Marian, the scheming of gay son Oscar, the predicament of very rich but socially ostracised Mrs Chamberlain and much else all occur more or less by the by and get scant examination.

In the hands of better writers - or rather in the hands of any writer but Fellowes - these themes might well have been scrutinised and presented with subtlety and nuance and insight. As it is they come and go with such alacrity, you might even miss them if you don't carefully time your comfort breaks.

One review of The Gilded Age made the pertinent point that for a drama which purports to deal with the lives, wealth, snobberies and affairs of the topmost echelons of late-19th century New York we see very little of that circle.

There are said to have been only 400 members of 25 families who were of any consequence at all in the city, so it is very odd that we get to know just about ten or so of those 400. Where are the rest? We can't expect to be presented to the other 390, but one or two more might have helped. And just two families of 25? That really is being excessively stingy.

I confessed earlier that there was an addictive quality to watching The Gilded Age, like that of soap operas and toffee. Well, I have to report it is an addiction I have now conquered.

Whatever else Aunt Agnes, Ada, Marian, Bertha and George Russell, Gladys, Larry, Oscar, Sylvia Chamberlain, Aurora Fane, Ward McAllister, Mrs Astor, Peggy and her parents and, of course, all the gang down there in the kitchen get up to, I shall be none the wiser.

If something very dramatic and serious happens, give me a shout. But otherwise I shall leave this fluffy nonsense to you while I take off in search of more interesting fare.

NB This review has been edited from the original piece I submitted.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

The 'cineastes' LOVE it (and you might enjoy it, too)

[7/10 · 12 November 2023]

If you choose to watch all kinds of films - that is if you don't limit yourself to this month's popcorn blockbuster / gross-out comedy / legal thriller / rom-com bollocks or any other Hollywood / Bollywood stable - you will surely have seen other David Lynch work. If you haven't, you might already know him by reputation. So the chances are you will know what to expect when you sat down to watch Mulholland Drive.

So if more mainstream common or garden Tinseltown fare is more your bag, the chances are you didn't much enjoy Lynch's film: 'What's it all about man, it was confusing. What does it all mean?'

Ah 'meaning', the bane of many a filmmaker, jazz musician, painter and writer.

'It was OK, but, you know, I didn't quite understand it.' Well that's odd, you want understanding? If you have just eaten an expensive meal out, something you have not tried before and you liked it, would it really make any sense at all then to say: 'Well, I really did like that - but what does it mean?'

And, of course, it meant nothing: the chef isn't in the business of purveying 'meaning' - he cooks and prepares interesting food, and I suspect - I must be careful here because I'm not chef - he would be quite happy if you simply enjoyed what he had made for you to eat.

How often have you heard someone or other comment 'well, I quite like some jazz, but I just don't understand it. What's it supposed to mean?' Come again? Isn't music, whether Beethoven, Miles Davis, Guy Clark, Bach, Taylor Swift, Afrobeat, Django Reinhardt, Steve Reich or anything your care to name in the first instant essentially made to be listened to (and danced to)?

Isn't it simply sound and what the composer and players are doing with it, manipulating it to which is core to their artistry?

Yes, pretentious cooks and jazzers might then come on with 'there is an intellectual dimension to what I compose / play, matey!' Well OK, if you say so, who am I to argue? But being more of an uncouth philistine, I would then probably politely and as unobtrusively as possible leave to drink in another bar and in different company.

Meaning? When folk bring up 'meaning' when talking of films, I am reminded of Sam Goldwyn's response to a writer complaining - and there are many different versions - that Goldwyn's edit had 'ruined the message': 'You want to send a message,' Goldwyn told him, 'ring Western Union'.

The good Lord and Lynch will know what he intended when he made Mulholland Drive, and being of a liberal persuasion, I happily concede hat and wish good luck to Lynch. Me, I'm not too bothered to 'know' what the film 'means'.

I'm far more content to enjoy - perhaps experience would be a better word - a film which I found interesting, engaging, intriguing and above all entertaining, and which held my attention from beginning to end.

This review will sit side-by-side with many that breathlessly give the film 10/10 and declare it is 'a masterpiece' and 'brilliant'. They proclaim it is one of the 'top twenty best films of all time' (a list which will, of course, include all the films made many centuries ago in Ancient Greece and when the Arab Islamic culture was producing all the top philosophers, mathematicians, surgeons and scientists while Western Europe was jousting and enslaving 97pc of its populations).

Let's calm down a little. As in jazz when a 'wrong note' is rarely detected because the canny player wisely chooses to repeat that 'wrong note' several times to persuade the more gullible 'that it's jazz, that's what we do', any 'inconsistencies' in Lynch's film, any 'non-sequiturs', any puzzling 'plot holes' or any flaws get a pass: Lynch meant them, you will assure me.

And I will assure YOU that I don't care - overall the film does it for me, I loved every minute of it, even those minutes where I had not a clue what might be going on. But let's stay sane. From me this gets a solid 6/10. Oh, all right 7/10 just to keep happy the cineastes and 'film buffs' who know the star sign of every significant director and what they usually ate for breakfast.

Keep 'em coming David. Oh, and don't bother with 'meaning', you really don't have to. This punter still likes your films.

The Gilded Age (2022– )

Horses for courses, fine for what it is. An unexciting make-do

[6/10 · 10 November 2023]

I wasn't a fan of Downton Abbey, but I could not have been because I never watched it. I did so for about ten minutes and decided it wasn't really my bag. So what am I doing watching The Gilded Age, which is pretty much Downton Abbey in refined Noo York?

Well, I don't really know. Rather like Downton (and all soap operas and toffee) there is a certain moreish quality to it so that the impulse to gawk at something else is postponed for just another five minutes for no very good reason that comes to mind. And then the next five minutes. And then . . .

As this is produced by HBO, the production values are very high. Acting and direction are OK, dialogue functional, plot uninspired, future plot twists pretty much predicable, so for many folk what is there not to like?

Those exquisite sets (and the costumes) are, frankly, just a little too perfect and remind you of nothing else but a very expensive film set. But I should imagine staunch and loyal Downton fans who are only too happy for Downton Rides Again won't object.

For a city in which, in the late 1870s/80s everyone who was anyone, i.e. The folk The Gilded Age is about, travelled by horse-drawn hansom cab, conditions are remarkably - I'll stress the 'remarkably' as I am remarking on - clean not to say spotless. Not a hint of horse droppings anywhere.

That is surprising because the amount of horse muck in the streets was a prime concern for big cities from London and Paris to, well, New York. They feared the might drown in it.

But then Downton folk don't want realism: they want Downton Rides Again. I'll probably carry on watching because my hunt, underway since I finished watching all four seasons of Succession, for the second time for an evening streaming watch has so far proved unproductive. And for what it is, The Gilded Age is fine. For what it is.

Rob Roy (1995)

Certainly has the edge over Braveheart but this is still Hollywood Highlands

[5/10 · 29 October 2023]

In a contest between Mel Gibson's Braveheart and Caton-Jones' Rob Roy, Rob Roy wins by several points, but frankly it is still Hollywood Scotland. Perhaps I'm being a tad picky, because there is nothing wrong with Caton-Jones' flick: it does the business well. The problem might be that it isn't really 'my kind of film'.

It has much on its side: a cast of excellent leading actors - Liam Neeson, John Hurt, Tim Roth, Brian Cox and (I wager to attract Yank backers) Tinseltown's own Jessica Lange. It has gorgeous settings and locations - I mean who doesn't love a Scottish castle? It has a reasonable 'plot' and it has 'action'. But somehow it lacks something, something I can't quote out my finger on.

Frankly, it drags a little at times. And despite the truly authentic Highland locations (though Megginch Castle whose courtyard doubles as the exterior of the Factors Inn and its surroundings is in Angus, which is not in the Highlands, nowhere near in fact) I kept thinking of all all those ads made by the Scottish Tourist Board.

Where was the rain, incessant on occasion and showers of which come along very suddenly in the Highlands? How come the sun was always shining? I know the Highlands and know how a mist can suddenly fall: but why did it suddenly fall whenever it was convenient for the script? Where were the bloody ubiquitous midges?

And then there was the score, orchestral to boot (mind the film was made almost 30 years ago) which does rather turn the whole exercise rather too much into Hollywood wears a kilt. I'm also pretty sure that turf-covered crofts in the Highlands did not boast glazed lead windows.

Perhaps I'm ruining it a little for less picky filmgoers. So, briefly, there's nowt wrong with Rob Roy. It's just that it is conventional, a tad old-fashioned even, and left me a little disappointed.

Tombstone (1993)

Not bad, but remember this is The West, Hollywood . . .

[6/10 · 17 September 2023]

The director Billy Wilder once quipped 'I've seen Paris, France, and I've seen Paris, Hollywood, and frankly I prefer Paris, Hollywood'. Many of us have seen the West in documentary photos and the West in Tinseltown Westerns, and frankly the Tinseltown West gets most people's vote despite the violence and, well, the violence.

I say that because just before watching Tombstone (for the second time in 30 years) by chance I've been watching short 'What the West was really like' videos on YouTube, consisting of a great many contemporary photographs as well as information that usually doesn't come our way in courtesy of Tinseltown Western.

The Westerns don't tell us of the choleras and tuberculosis epidemic, the horrific of sanitation, the often quite lethal medical 'care' at the hands of often unqualified hack 'doctors' and the very, very basic bars. In those photos the women folk are often haggard - it was a hard life - and are not done up to the nines like the lass who fell for Shane, the men dress just just like the folk back East but are a lot shabbier.

They were most certainly not done up to the nines with spotless shirts and jackets and bowler hats and the 'baddies' most certainly did not glam themselves up with jingle-jangle and picturesque outfit. Gunfights were very rare indeed, as were bank robberies.

The town's building were very often very basic jerry-built wooden death traps thrown up overnight. The barrooms were equally basic, their floors covered with straw to soak up spilled booze but also the phelgm drinkers spat out on the floor, ignoring the spittoons. Along the bar hung a number of towels which everyone used to wipe beer foam from their mouth and which were a major factor in spreading disease and infection.

All that and more is why we prefer 'the West', Hollywood, to the rather dispiriting real thing. The closest I have seen the fictional West come to what I now know was the real thing was on HBO's Deadwood. And that is also why the second time around my enjoyment and appreciation of Tombstone was decidedly muted. The world Tombstone is 100% fantasy. Oh, well.

Having said that, fantasy and a make-believe past is exactly what the punters want when the buy their movie tickets and stock up on popcorn to wait for the lights to go out. And in that regard Tombstone is as good as many such films. But don't mistake it for anything but The West, Hollywood.

The Americans (2013–2018)

Of its kind outstanding, well ahead of the pack

[8/10 · 27 August 2023]

Over the past twenty years, TV has evolved into 'streaming', and soon everyone and their accountant got in on the act. HBO were one of the first (or possibly even the first) and for whatever reason, it decided to put quality and excellence high on its list of priorities. And we should all thank them for that.

Until then, TV drama, TV cops and robbers, TV thrillers, TV PI series (with even the notable exception of The Rockford Files) were pretty unchallenging, followed one of a few patterns and certainly never challenging themselves. 'I mean', TV execs were telling each other, 'why change a winning formula?' Why indeed?

Well, it was, in fact, only 'winning' because no one else was in the race. But then HBO and others - I should imagine the companies in the 'streaming' market certainly outnumber national TV channels in every country - joined that race and popular 'entertainment' got a well-deserved kick in its rear end.

OK, Kojak, Hawaii Five O, Mannix and all the rest had their champions and within their remit were entertaining enough. But that remit was very narrow, and as most of the glossy stuff was made in the US and because in the US TV needed to screen ads every ten minutes, there was little leeway or encouragement to step outside the formula.

Storylines were tailored to have a 'minor cliffhanger' every ten minutes to ensure the punters carried on watching once the ad break was over, and that made 'the product' formulaic and frankly often not very good. HBO's business model drastically changed all that.

Selling their programmes on cable, HBO no longer had had to tailor everything to the needs - and demands - of the advertisers, and drama and its creators were set free: episodes were no longer 'episodic', they writers and directors had a much freer hand and could include, for example, include several story arcs with themes, characters could be developed, real nudity and so on. In short, drama was given its freedom. And HBO blazed the trail.

Its business model has been imitated - and why not: it is an excellent business model which works, so since then there have been other excellent series which also had quality high on their list of imperatives.

But the easy money also seduced quite a few companies into merely imitating the production values of HBO but skimping quite a bit on its attitude to artistic quality. In the process many of the cliched laziness of TV drama crept in to some series, and some also became formulaic.

In many ways The Americans is a drama of its kind. Granted it is a good example 'of its kind' but, frankly, at the end of the day it is more or less just another 'spy drama' and thus it does share some of 'its kind's faults'.

Its creator, Joe Weisberg (who did serve with the CIA for a few years, he tells us, but found it wasn't for him) says he based his idea of long-embedded Soviet KGB agents masquerading as your average American suburban middle-class cookie-cutter couple on several such real-life agent couples who were eventually unmasked.

Where the his fictional version differs from their real-life counterparts is that the 'real' ones were almost universally ineffective to useless. Yes, they fooled everyone by posing as Americans, but no, they did not supply anything of any value back to Moscow.

On the other hand Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, both excellent) are, frankly, hugely successful and astonishingly efficiet.

Certainly they end up in sticky situation, but - this is make-believe, friends - they always manage to escape pretty largely unscathed. And on that score - realism - The Americans is certainly 'of its kind': 'realistic' it isn't in that sense.

In 'real' life the murders they commit would come under intense police investigation, and although our cops might sometimes be racist, most are hardworking, not at all dumb and persistent.

Yet in the fictional world of Mr and Mrs Undercover KGB, nothing much comes of anything in all the killing. Get rid of the body of a woman who has just been strangled by a Pakistani spook? Easy. Set up a complex car crash involving several cars to ensure Mrs KGB is not caught by several pursuing and coordinated CIA agents in cars? Child's play.

And our couple seem to be able to call upon the resources of quite a few other KGB agents who, though, remain in the shadows.

In sum: there might be hairy moments, but at the end of the day 'the heroes' (sort of) escape to live another day. But hey, this is entertainment.

As I say, The Americans is of its kind. Then and here's the 'but' - it is, even in its lack of realism compared to 'real' life a great deal better than similar programmes of its kind.

There is - thankfully - no grandstanding by the characters, we can believe in them (their luck notwithstanding). Weisberg and his team have decided to do without cliches entirely.

Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings, their unwitting FBI agent neighbour Stan Beeman, other FBI bods and - especially - the 'commie nasties' holed up in the Soviet embassy come across as real people.

Especially laudable is Weisberg and his producers choosing to portray the Russians as pretty much ordinary joes, too, though working for the other side.

They are - whisper it - likeable.

There is none of that silly 'Cold War' stereotyping which wrecks otherwise potentially decent drama.

Weisberg also admitted that at the end of the day his show is not about spooks and spying but about marriage.

And in his portrayal of the Jennings' marriage, Beeman's disintegrating marriage, the sad sham marriage an FBI secretary has been conned into, it all rings true: there are no 'meaningful lines', 'quotable quotes', just folk like you and I doing the best they can, and that is an achievement.

And that is why The Americans really is a standout show.

In the Cut (2003)

Doesn't quite make the cut, but the filming is rather good, hence the rating

[7/10 · 21 August 2023]

It's a puzzle what to make of Jane Campion's In The Cut. In many ways it's stylish and dare I say 'Continental' as in it could be one of the those French films 'cineastes' rave about and the rest of us like but get a little lost in. Of all its virtues the paranoid, handheld camera cinematography is one of this main ones.

In fact, it's an American production although the director is New Zealand's own Jane Campion and one producer is Australia's Nicole Kidman (who was to star in it but apparently schedules got in the way), but fundamentally it's American and proof that they can still make interesting, if slightly baffling, films when they want to.

The film is an adaptation of an 'erotic thriller' by Susanna Moore of the same name and ostensibly describes a serial killer on the loose and an affair one of the investigating detectives (Mark Ruffalo, who is excellent) has with a potential witness. That witness is Meg Ryan, for many year's everyone's favourite ditzy blonde, but here showing there's a lot more to her acting.

Truth be told, the killings are peripheral and play little part in the film which is mainly concerned with Malloy, the Ruffalo NYPD tec taking in interest in Ryan's character, an English teacher who is, in the side, compiling a dictionary of black slang.

The more or less immediately start having sex - not underplayed in the film - all the time Ryan wondering because of a tattoo Malloy has whether he is actually the killer he says he is tracking down. As I say the gruesome murders are as far as the film is concerned neither her nor there, but - this is the slightly puzzling part - what is the film about?

It has many intriguing elements - the father of both Ryan's character and her half-sister who becomes a murder victim and how he woos Ryan's mother, the black student Ryan is working with to understand the slang, her former boyfriend who pretty much stalks her and is clearly off his trolley - but they don't come together.

Ironically, they don't necessarily have to 'make sense' - we all grown-ups now and can deal with the kind semi-meaninglessness this kind of 'art-house' flick often makes its own - but we should be given a sporting chance at the possibility we might, this way or that, 'understand it'. Sadly, we don't (unless I am missing something).

Having said all that, In The Cut - I have no idea how the title might relate to the film (or for that matter the book on which it is based) - in a strange way doesn't disappoint. There is a certain fascination about it which wins points.

For one thing the seedy, underlit look of it all, which won't have the New York tourist office jumping for joy, that's for sure, is almost enough to carry the film. Almost but not quite. But I'm feeling generous and it does get a 7.

White House Plumbers (2023)

Nice try but no cigar

[6/10 · 9 July 2023]

Pretty much the only thing you can say about HBO's White House Plumbers is 'very nice try but no cigar'. Frankly, it's difficult to put your finger on what doesn't quite work and why, but something doesn't quite work.

It has great talent in the main roles, and it sticks closely to the - ridiculous and almost unbelievable - truth of how useless Hunt and Liddy's operation was on behalf of trying to get Richard Nixon re-elected as US president, but somehow it has some kind of ingredient X missing.

It might well be that White House Plumbers can't quite make up its mind what it is or what it wants to be: is it a satire? Is it just simple comedy? Is it a semi-factual attempt at portraying the cast of bozos hired to get President Nixon re-elected? It has elements of all those, but is too much of a mish-mash to be clear about any of it.

For example, one interesting theme which is alluded to and might have had traction is Howard Hunt's family life: in White House Plumbers he is shown as a guy who had a reasonable track record with the CIA, and though we are given the impression he did not leave the service on the best of terms he is no dumbo - Liddy is the nutjob and Hunt is forever reining him in.

Yet Hunt's home life adds a completely different dimension to the man: at home he is somehow cut down to size, by his eminently sensible wife, by his second oldest daughter and a long-haired son who are the kind of 'counter-culture' youngsters Hunt is battling.

In sum, Hunt might like to see himself as a man of consequence in the outside world, but at home not quite as much.

Yet, this theme is not developed as it might have been and which would have given the series more bottom: it is just one of several strands of which none ends up being the guiding theme.

Liddy is portrayed pretty much as a caricature, but how much of a cartoon figure was he in real life? Wed don't know. It other protagonists whose names we might all recall from the Watergate hearings - Johns Dean, Jeb Magruder, Chuck Colson, John Mitchell - also get a look in, but are oddly peripheral. This series is almost exclusively about Hunt and Liddy.

Overall, I have to say, White House Plumbers is entertaining enough but really little more than an opportunity lost. It does pick up after the first two episodes, but not enough to give it real legs. As I say, nice try but no cigar.

The Diplomat (II) (2023– )

Tries too hard by half and ends up being half of what it might have been

[5/10 · 2 July 2023]

First off, I swear like a trooper: I've been 'officially' advised to turn down my language by bosses more than once. I am no prude. But of late there has been a marked tendency in 'streaming' series to have characters swear like troopers - notably to drop the F word willy-nilly - almost all the time. And The Diplomat does it in spades.

What the thinking is by the producers I can only guess at. Is it supposed to make the characters 'more real'? Who knows. But if that is the reason, they fail: it does nothing but make them 'less real'.

A character dropping an F bomb or a C bomb unexpectedly can be very effective. But when characters describe effing this and effing that as a matter of course, it comes across as forced and artificial, rather like a spotty unsure-of-himself 15-year-old trying rather too hard to 'impress'.

In the context of The Diplomat, however, following the F bomb trend in part sums up why there is sadly less to The Diplomat than meets the eye.

It looks the part and often feels that part and production values are very high - not least when it came to hiring thesps to do the F bomb dropping. But episode by episode it become oddly less and less convincing.

It's rather like the kind of disappointment you feel when you are drinking a last bottle of bourbon with friends and become aware that bit by bit the bottle is getting empty.

The premise is a little far-fetched but who cares? I don't. What is important is what is done with the premise, how it is handled. And, for me at least, The Diplomat slowly loses on points: we might have dropped our disbelief but little by little we, er, regain it.

Premise: bright female US State Department careerist married to another, apparently even brighter, US State Department careerist and former ambassador is posted to London quite suddenly at the height of a crisis. It is then revealed that that she is being lined up as a potential replacement for the Vice-president and the ambassadorship is intended to test whether she 'has what it takes'.

So far so - well, OK, this is TV / streaming drama. And in the right hands this could have gone the distance. But for various reasons it flags a little, then flags a little more.

For example some of the very best elements of Game of Thrones was the Kings Landing intriguing. Similar intriguing is attempted in The Diplomat, but it is all just a tad to unconvincing, not least the US ambassador and her hubby swearing like troopers as a matter of course. Er, not quite, eh.

Then we have a British PM and his Foreign Secretary - who also do a lot of F bombing - behaving like cartoon cutouts and finally what could have been an interesting and engaging intelligent series ends up as just another very glossy piece of TV / streaming drama.

Oh, well. Early episodes of House of Cards this isn't. And it doesn't come anywhere close.

A solid 5/10. Increasingly disappointing. Sorry. Could have been great, but . . . At first promising, then flirts with caricature - amd becomes disappointing.

Oh, and the theme music is a pretty blatant rip-off of the Succession theme music. It happens.

Veep (2012–2019)

Satire at its best and sharpest

[10/10 · 9 June 2023]

Like Seinfeld, Cheers and various radio comedies here in Britain, Veep rewards repeat viewing - each time. I've seen all seven seasons several times but a little earlier I decided to see them all again.

Yes, the incessant foul language has bothers some, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest and the originality in coming up with ever grosser insults can only be admired.

But like its British predecessor The Thick Of It (by the same team), Veep is more than just a barrage of swearing and ludicrous situations. Time and again it neatly skewers the cynicism, pomposity, incompetence, vanity, mendacity and inefficiency of politics and politicians.

I'm certainly not one of those convinced that all politicians are hopeless crooks - many have achieved and are achieving good things. But even they will admit that their job is not made simpler by the shenanigans of some of their peers.

Right, now back to watching Veep . . .