This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Whilst this was a very decent storyline, and well acted, I have to say it was the most depressing few hours to endure. Sombre throughout, not a smile. just relentless misery.

The who in whodunit stays well hidden until near the end, but not before practically everybody else is trotted out as a possibility. The plot, as usual, revolves around everyone doing the wrong thing, including the Detective, played by a favorite of mine, Laura Fraser, whose deer in the headlight looks are a delight. Unfortunately after all the shenanigans the denouement seems over blown, and the tied up plot ends too pat.

It was a dark and stormy night in the Scottish Highlands. Brutally murdered young newlyweds; the pretty young wife lying on her back, hugely pregnant, with her throat slit from ear to ear. The boy-husband slumped over on the sofa soaked in blood. The devastated parents and siblings (next door neighbors) of the two victims. The crack-addicted schizophrenic murderer? crashing a stolen Lexus while on his way (for some mysterious reason) to the home of one of the victims. The pretty female agent investigating the murder happens to be selling illegal acid to make bank for her dying daughter's brain tumor operation in India. Her daughter's girlfriend took a hit of that very acid thus hurling herself from her balcony because she thought she could fly. Daddy #1 (abandoned the family years before) suddenly grows a conscience so profound that he walks in front of a truck. More crying. Daddy #2 is hiding the fact that he has Parkinson's Disease from Mom who is screwing their farm supervisor. The most sympathetic characters are the hacker son and a dying older woman hellbent on assisted suicide. The list goes on. If Nessie herself had risen up out of the Loch like Godzilla and devoured the whole lot of them I wouldn't have been surprised. The writer should have used 'Chekov's Gun' to cut out all that was not serving the story (and the characterization) around the murder mystery so that we could have watched a crackerjack narrative showcasing this talented ensemble cast.

After being intrigued by the BBC trailers that made the mini-series look like an Agatha Christie-inspired Noir family Drama,I decided to start uncovering the episodes,one by one.The plot:A man drives to the Scottish highlands and crashes his car.Seeing the car crashed,two families who have known each other for decades,come out on the stormy night to help him out.Never having seen the guy before,the families are taken aback,when one of their addresses is found in his coat pocket.Feeling that he might be dangerous, (and with the police unable to answer calls due to the storm) the families decide to lock him in the barn yard for the night.Coming out the next morning to get info out of the night,the families discover that during the night,one of them killed him.View on the show:Taking place against a beautiful Scottish backdrop,the Williams steam a dour Noir family drama with a brittle Agatha Christie-style Murder Mystery in eps 1 and 4,with stylishly tinted flashbacks from director William McGregor bringing the fractured nature of the relationships out of the loyal families.Whilst the cast (which includes a great John Lynch) give gravitas to the murky revelations,the Williams clip the Noir mystery tension in eps 2 and 3 by focusing on the troubled relationships between the families running dry with forced family unease that tries to cast harsh Film Noir isolation on the families,but fails to match the burning Noir anxiety cut deep into the first and final episodes.