Truly Dreadful Film

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Marta Walraven (Radha Mitchell) comes from a crime family, and when her husband is gunned down, she finds herself entangled by his underworld business. Crime boss Nicholae Schiller (Goran Visnjic) blames her husband for stealing his drugs, and forces her to work for him. It turns out that her brother Irwin Petrov (Wil Traval) was actually the one who stole the drugs.All the underworld crime drama isn't anything new. But in order to get involved, there has to be some rooting interest. The fact is there is nobody likable. Every character is problematic, even the kids. The girl is clueless. The boy is annoyingly idiotic. The family is completely dysfunctional. So who cares what happens to these people. Certainly not me.

The series has some intriguing possibilities. The core cast of Radha Mitchell and Goran Visnjic is very solid - and Radha's (Marta's) family also has a range of better possibilities. The sleeper in this series might be Luke Goss' character, Luther. At this point, he is underused. At present, the writers have too many illogical sub plots that allow potentially good characters to dangle. A good example of a misused character is Colin's portrayal of James Ramos. Even though the plot wanders, the acting is good. It's also refreshing to see some new talented faces rather than simply recycled actors.If the writers would tighten up both the plot and characters, Red Widow has the potential to be a real winner. As an aside, I think this franchise would have a much better chance on CBS rather than ABC. CBS manages its drama franchises much better, including time slotting and lead-ins. Red Widow could be a great fit with this network's lineup. However, with more focused writing, Red Widow might help ABC find its way back to prime time ratings success.

I was glad that one of our public broadcasting networks in my country (the Netherlands) was finally able to produce a darn good drama TV show.The tone, atmosphere, casting, dialog, pacing and direction were to a very high standard and helped tell the intriguing story. For the first time in history a dutch drama series was able to measure up to the quality of production of the first season of "the Wire"! It's really a shame that this show got in the wrong hands with ABC. It was a really misguided decision to adapt a foreign TV show that has only 1 solid story (first season, effectively an extended mini-series) and no real reason to tell the story after that. HBO is the only US channel I know, that could do a story like this right.What we end up with is ABC and Melissa Rosenberg? I've read that Melissa Rosenberg, the developer of the US adaptation planned to fill 7 seasons! The production team clearly doesn't understand how to effectively tell this story. Why choose San Fransico as a location for telling a drug smuggling mafia story, most credibility is lost right there. Some roles have been grossly miscast. The tone is too lighthearted and is at times even campy. The pacing is so far off that you're not able to follow the story, let alone connect with the characters......It's a shame that the US has been robbed of a good TV show by ABC and Melissa Rosenberg....It's a shame that this bland mess is now associated with my country.

I was "held hostage" to this premiere of Red Widow for the whole 2 hours! It will be one show I will be watching every week as long as it is on! Hopefully it will remain on the air. Seems as though every new show I get involved in is cancelled - maybe this one will make it even tho the ratings on IMDb do not reflect my opinion.This show is about a married woman with a family, who was not aware of the depth her husband was involved in with the Mob and is left with a debt that has to be paid back after her husband is brutally murdered or there will be consequences to her and her family. She has relatives involved in the Mob and she goes to them for advice.