Very Cool!!!

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Vicious, disgusting, more than gory, just gross, and yet so true to "life" if this is life. It sure is Yorkshire, accent, desolation and misery (more than plain and simple poverty), cruelty, pollution, greed, vice, perversion, etc. spread all over. All evils in one pouch, one bag in West Yorkshire and the motto that "this is the north, where we do what we want," that's the great beauty of ugliness.It will take you three long episodes to reach the culprit and you won't be surprised at all when you finally come to him. In the meantime the police would have revealed itself the most odious, ferocious and mentally cannibalistic institution you can imagine. Asking a question for them is necessarily hurting, torturing and a few other things of the sort: breaking fingers, crushing burning cigarettes anywhere you can imagine, stripping the suspects naked, and the films do not show them naked (prudes!). There is not one single person in the police force that is able to do anything regular like find a culprit that is really guilty and bring that one to justice. One journalist is driven to craziness and some deadly justice enforcing spree, and yet you will know if he was right in his choice of targets at the end of the third film. Another young man, slightly spaced out will be convinced under duress by everyone, probably only in the police, that he killed the girl. And he will end his life in prison. With little chance to be retried since he signed a confession and pleaded guilty.And quite a few are questioned that way and yet the crimes are going on: kidnapped girls, then raped, and in many ways cut up and carved up and more or less endowed with wings and feathers. And all that in a society that is rotten to the core, that speculates on the death of as many people as possible with pollution and the exploitation of them as long as they live with projects that are as crazy as they are greedy of shopping malls with cinemas and all kinds of entertainments to empty the billfolds of the gullible submissive slaves of the public till they are empty and they can then commit suicide or die young of any kind of hazardous escaping tentative or industrial pollution. And for the girls and women prostitution and promiscuity are the main two udders of everyday suspended death. You can imagine what the other two are.And be sure that all the cadres of the police and the most respected people in this society, lay and clerical, are among the small circle of speculators and their only aim is to make money and thus to keep the surrounding society going because you cannot squeeze money out of marginal miserable derelict and impoverished proletariat. No matter what, they must have just a little bit more than their basic needs to be able to spend that little bit more in the traps of the entertaining plotters.Is it a great trilogy? I do not know but one thing is sure even if at the end the killer is finally put out of the way all the corrupted elite of this part of Yorkshire will not be in any way even questioned, not to speak of prosecuted. After all corruption is the basic human dimension: the survival instinct of the more corrupted declared the fitter, by all means, even selling their parents into slavery and feeding their own children to the industrial sharks of our certainly not post-modern society but definitely pre-modern jungle.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

The Red Riding films have been sitting recorded waiting for me to watch them for quite some time. I set the recorder at the time for them because of the praise they received and the number of well-known names in there, other than this I didn't know too much and didn't know the books they are based off. The plot sees a young journalist returning to northern England and picking up a story about a murdered girl who was found with swan wings sewn onto her back. The police seem to be content with the usual suspects but when he starts digging deeper he finds a world of police corruption and cronyisms, putting him in danger.When I watched this film I tried to put the hype and critical acclaim out of my mind and just come to it as I found it. As such I was not overly impressed by it but did enjoy it for the grimness that it does well. The film does have an engaging sense of foreboding and toughness that suits the material and it delivers this aspect of it very well in terms of tone, locations, costumes and general feel. However, this is ultimately a story, not just atmosphere, and I was surprised that the film didn't deliver on this particularly well. I've never read the books but I do presume they are longer than this 90 minute film represents and I presume this because it seems like a lot is rammed in here and nothing really has much time to develop or grow before we're onto the next thing. This reduced the impact of the story for me because it did feel like I was being rushed through it rather than being allowed to move around within it. It isn't helped by it more or less going where you think it will go almost by virtue of how quickly it hands you everything, thus focusing on mind on certain characters and scenarios rather than allowing the bigger world to be a thing.The cast do well even though so many of them seem to have a few minutes each. Garfield is solid in the lead even if he seems to spent a lot of the time just being beaten. Hall works well next to him but outside of these two the cast seem too deep in faces and not deep enough in screen time for them. So people like Marsan, Mercer, Bean, Mullan etc really don't feel like they are well used even if they are good in their moments. Everyone has a good accent but it is worth saying that to those not familiar with it, it may be difficult to always pick up what is being said – this is not just down to the thickness of the accents but the sound engineering here has lots of background noise and, for the sake of atmosphere I guess, seems to have lots of mumbling.This first film has enough good about it for me to check out the second in the trilogy, but I hope it does better with the actual story telling part. In this case atmosphere and time/place was very well done but the story and characters felt rushed and the impact of the tale was lessened due to this, which is a shame.

well i very eagerly started to see the first movie of this trilogy & really enjoyed it for good 30-35 minutes. i won't hover over the storyline or the direction because it is based on a book & the mood and settings of the story doesn't allow the director to experiment with the plot or screenplay sometimes so benefit of doubt goes with the director.i would like to throw light on my findings.well the speed of the movie is way too slow as the events take more emotional turns then the kind of genre the original book claims to be.With due respect to the author of the book what i mean to say is that if you are making/writing a suspense or crime drama you have to keep feeding your audience or readers with enough doses of shocks or twists every now and then; which is missing in plenty here. though i understand that every crime drama cannot be all about bloodshed with dozen murders to tell a tale but when i saw the movie my heart & mind were longing for elements which make a mystery movie tick in the minds of the audiences.i enjoyed the first half an hour but after that i kinda lost it..police is beating a journalist.. well if you want to scare someone why not hire a couple of pro's for it.. why give a hint that event the law is involved in this. A clever enemy never shows his identity. but if the main purpose of the book was to portray social & political background like corrupt lawmen & capitalistic industrialists then i would have seen the Blood Diamond, Syriana or something like that..but when i go for a suspense & crime movie well you can't overshadow the suspense shades of the story than emotional part there must be a balance which was missing according to me!! Another thing which seemed odd to me the very reason given by the main culprit in the climax just was not digestible because that was the very first reason which forced the lead character to begin his investigation so i am not complaining but i was shocked because i have read many fictions and never came across something so short & plain that it seems childish well again i know that the writer must have had his own reason & thought process to justify the events & their outcomes but they were not worth a movie making material.so for me it started on a good note but it disappointed me in the last one hour or so. It is a good reading material (the book)not for screen adaptation( at least this part)!!The lead actor has given a powerful performance but otherwise not much to do for others.I respect the original writer it was production company's shortsightedness to adopt the story for silver screen. watch it if you can handle out of the league movie with similar thought process story! my rating 6/10.

I know a lot of people thought that the trilogy was a let-down, but 1974 has floored me both of the times that I watched it. This one stands as one of the most impressive works of 2010 to me. The visual style immediately drew me in, gripping me into this world and putting me right in the shoes of Eddie Dunford. I love plots like this, with a guy just fighting against everything to bring down corruption. It's all so gritty and so dark, and expertly draws you into this dangerous, despicable world without fail.Andrew Garfield is perfect in the lead role; he was practically made for the role of this sly and naive journalist walking into the lion's den. His charisma and do-gooder attitude goes through hell throughout the duration of the film and he plays every second magnificently. The character makes such a brutal, wrecked transformation throughout the film and Garfield is right there hitting every single step without fail. I know some people have had some backlash against his sudden popularity, but that really just doesn't make sense to me because he came out of nowhere last year with three performances that were absolutely extraordinary.Rebecca Hall is superb in this one as well, proving again that she is one of the finest actresses of her generation. She brings this cold vulnerability to her role that is very chilling and sticks with you when the film is over. Two superb performances in a very dark, excellent picture.