An action-packed slog

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

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

First Ridley writes the magnificent "12 Years A Slave." Then he does 3 seasons of "American Crime" on American TV, and even though no one watched the third season, and they had to cancel it, it was fantastic. And now we have "Guerrilla," which I wasn't too sure I was going to like going in, but is also very, very good. I used to just make "Best 10" lists for movies, but with the quality of TV so high the last few years, I have started doing it for TV now, and there's a very good chance that "Guerrilla" is going to be on it at the end of this year.While everyone wants to talk about the lead actors/actresses, I thought there were two great performances in supporting roles that are worth mentioning: Zawe Ashton as Omega, one of the leaders of the mainstream black resistance, and Daniel Mays as Cullen, one of the detectives trying to catch the guerrillas.Of course Freida Pinto is gorgeous in the series, and I couldn't help but notice if maybe the filmmakers thought so too, as it seemed the camera lingered on Pinto a bit too long even when other characters were talking on the screen.Idris Elba is barely in it, so if you're watching this series for him, you'll be disappointed.Finally, as another reviewer previously noted, it is indeed surprising that the positive reviews are coming mostly from the Americans, and the negative reviews are coming mostly from the Brits. Since it takes place in England, maybe there is an authenticity issue that I don't know about because I live in the States. But with an interesting story, interesting characters, great dialogue and great performances, I obviously liked it very much.

I was unfamiliar with the story depicted in Guerilla though it is only loosely based on a true story from what I gather. I had heard about controversy hitting the show before it aired with its depiction of black women. I stuck with it knowing it would only take six episodes and the finale was a few days ago by the time I post this so as one might be able to tell, it wasn't a priority. The show is not as explosive as some other Showtime series and doesn't have a sense of urgency trying to tell a grand story in only six episodes. I found some of the acting interesting though I do think the casting could have been better. Idris Elba as Kent is great as he always is in any role he takes on but he has only a few scenes in the early episodes.The story revolves around the romance of Jas Mitra (Freida Pinto) and Marcus (Babou Ceesay). Jas admires his drive to make a difference and helps him break out another radical Dhari (Nathaniel Martello-White). Jas had a relationship with Kent but doesn't like how he takes a more passive approach to resisting the racial profiling and acts of the British Parliament. Kent doesn't like the racial profiling but takes a different approach to resistance. He cooperates with the officer investigating the couple and leads them to a hideout.Check out more of this review and others at swilliky.com

In 1971 I was a young Skinhead in a seaside town. We loved Ska and reggae and our West Indian friends - we hated long-haired white UK bikers and smelly white UK hippies who were mainly middle-class - we loved our West Indian friends - fact.We were working-class UK skinheads and our main music was black music - ska, soul, reggae and R&B - we loved black culture.To see this piece of garbage and complete lies on the US TV is so hurtful and so wrong. This program is a complete lie from someone who knows nothing about 1971 in the UK.This program is truly awful and a lie.I marched with the Clash in 1978 when we marched against the National Front in London. It is so obvious that the person who created this program knows nothing about the UK and its history.Possibly the worst TV crap of all time.

Just to be clear, this is not a fair review of this programme. It is not fair because I found the programme so awful, that I could only manage to get through one episode of six. I started watching the second episode but had to switch off after twenty minutes. So, to be clear, I did not enjoy it.The programme I am speaking of is the much promoted and heralded Sky six- parter, Guerrilla. With the headliners being Idris Elba and Freida Pinto, advertising has, misleadingly, lead with their images. Perhaps Idris comes more to the fore in later episodes, but in the opening episode, it is Frida's character that drives the story. So the story: Guerrilla tells the story of a group of militants who decide to free a political prisoner and wage war on the establishment after one of their friends is murdered by the police during a demonstration. We begin with Jas (Pinto) and her partner, Marcus (Babou Ceesay) visiting their activist friend, Dhari (Nathaniel Martello-White) in prison. Later they meet up with another couple, Julian (Nicholas Pinnock) a peaceable activist, and his Irish girlfriend, Fallon (Denise Gough) and head to the pub. Elsewhere, Pence - played by Rory Kinnear, channelling his best Afrikaans accent for some unknown reason - is a policeman on a mission. He wants Julian dead and instructs officers to target him during an upcoming demonstration. During the demonstration, police plants make sure trouble starts. During the ensuing melee, the police beat Julian to death. An aside - as I write this I am trying to watch the second episode again. It is awful. Utter garbage. The fact that this is written by a black person is even more galling. John Ridley, off the back of the critically acclaimed 12 Years A Slave - once again I must admit I was not a fan of that either, though I did not hate it - is an American - and how it shows! - has already received some backlash for casting an Asian Indian, Pinto, in the lead role of a black activist drama, weakly offering that his own real life partner is of Asian descent and a strong woman! If we all decide to write dramas based on the people we like and admire, whilst using historical themes as our context, we can no doubt look forward to a version of Jews being liberated en masse by a black man because some well place writer totally knows a guy who would do that!If that was the only issue with this drama, it would be a minor one. An important one, but in the context of the sheer awfulness of the show, a minor one. The sets are good and the clothing, though it would be a poor wardrobe department that could not recreate the seventies look with so much material and pictorial material available. The music? What the hell are they listening to?!I never such music in an English black household. Though actors are always struggling for work and black actors even more so, I can only believe that on seeing this, that there are many black actors who feel they dodged a bullet.I thought perhaps it was my age, as I was only a small child when this was set in the early seventies, but it is too terrible to be that. Ridley, for some reason known only to himself, decides that in the U.K.- in the early seventies - that Indian Asians, African blacks, West Indian blacks, Irish and Afro-Americans all hung out together, fighting against a near apartheid-like police force and their own liberal minded brethren! He introduces gun play - they can't get any money together but they can get a gun?! - in the first episode. This is set in England! Nineteen seventies England! Gun was not easy to come by and if a black person had shot a white person of uniform - Marcus shoots an ambulance man - in the seventies, they would have called out the army! Now suffering episode three - oh god! - they are trying to mix with Marxist! This show is so mind-numbingly dreadful that I am struggling to find enough adjectives to describe it. It is meandering, clichéd, indulgent, unbelievable, dreary, uninspired, mistaken and pointless. I really do not recommend this show, not even for curiosity value!