Thanks for the memories!

Admirable film.

Absolutely Fantastic

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Adding to what was already said under a similar headline: they had two bodies in the morgue for many days, but didn't bother to check their DNAs?

This decade have more desolate parts of the UK created their own crime dramas, where harsh nature bears a natural supporting part, emphasizing the bad thoughts and bad deeds... Events and characters are intertwined, actors-actresses have usually no model look, creating the atmosphere of reality and letting to pay more attention on the whole cast rather than someone single and "famous". The series in question, with main events in the Scottish Highland, includes the features above, and that is why it is generally to my liking. But as the total No. of episodes is 4 only, some supplementary events and characters are excessive, focusing on 1 crime could have been enough. The course of solving the crime is okay, the wrongdoer was not revealed too early, but the motives and background did not leave distinct impression for me. That is why I rate e.g. Shetland and Happy Valley higher than this miniseries here.

By midway into Episode 4, I was laughing at the intertwining secrtets - everyone has one - of adultery, murder, cover up, drug dealing, corrupt cop, two people dying (an oldster and a youngster), unrevealed diseases (Parkinson's), lying, drug use, suicides, incompetent cops, incest, Bill tossing people out of his house, infanticide, abandonment, stealing, cover-ups, confessions, burying a complete car with a dead killer inside, and affairs. I am waiting for the revelation that someone was screwing one of the farm animals. That's about all that was left. Shakespeare could not even have pulled this one off. I'm not sure if I can make it through to the end. No one edited this script, and they damn well should have.

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.