Great Film overall

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

The acting in this movie is really good.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

As an American I have no problem with saying that British sit-coms are light years ahead of the crap that plays well here in the U.S. After being a huge fan of "BlackAdder", I was reluctant to buy "Thin Blue Line" for fear of being let down because "Blackadder" was so incredibly good, especially "Blackadder Goes Fourth", but I was immediately taken with these characters and the crisp, witty writing. With America's lame sex-coms, uh... I mean sit-coms being so sophomoric and so completely predictable, it's always a breath of fresh air to watch a Brit-com. I'd rather watch "Red Dwarf" or "Thin Blue Line" repeatedly than most of the tripe offered on the major U.S. networks these days. Brit-coms are funnier, smarter and always more colorful. If you love brit-coms don't miss this little jewel!!

The Thin Blue Line is a very enjoyable comedy to watch due to the variety of different characters created by Ben Elton whom are extremely different to one another and also very funny in their own ways. The show is based in the fictional town of Gasforth which is suppose to be located around London.Inspector Fowler (played by Atkinson) is the well-spoken police officer who is best described by his girlfriend police Sargeant Dawkins as a "man who was born middle aged". Atkinson is superb in the role, and my favourite moments involving Inspector Fowler include his views and attitudes towards current society in which he would rather stay in his office and read a book whilst eating a chocolate frog than queueing up in the bank to renew his standing order. There are also great moments in the show when Fowler has to interact with other members of the police force including Constable Goody and Inspector Grimm.Inspector Grimm has to be the highlight of the show, he is played wonderfully by David Haig who unfortunately has not be on TV much after his excellent performance on this show. Grimm gets frustrated easily by Fowler, police work and anything in general. He works in CID in the Gasforth police station and yearns for real police work involving thugs and drug dealers. But in most cases he gets tricked by students who cause pranks during rag week, gets foiled in a honey trap operation which he took accountability for and becomes an undercover football fan where he arrests the football players rather than the fans. Inspector Grimm just cant take "fannying about".Another brilliant character is Constable Goody who joined the police force to "strut around in a nice uniform and stop crime". He unintentionally gets under Inspector Fowler's skin who finds him quite annoying. He also fancies the feminist Constable Maggie Habib, who he has no chance in winning over but still tries relentlessly to impress her.The show is worth checking out if you are a fan of British comedy and/or Rowan Atkinson and writer Ben Elton. Both seasons one and two are enjoyable with all episodes worth watching. My favourite episode is the finale to season two in which Fowler upsets Sargeant Dawkins after his terrible marriage proposal and he therefore is asked to come out on the pull by the other officers (a term Fowler is not familiar with). Also in the episode Inspector Grimm believes his time has come to be promoted in CID.

This is Ben Elton's homage to Croft & Perry's 'Dad's Army'. the very first episode shows Inspector Fowler coming out of a shop called Mainwaring's, looking very similar to Hodges in his ARP helmet. As the series progresses and the characters develop, you can see the similarities to the characters of Captain Mainwaring (Fowler) Pikey (goody) and Jonesey (Gladsone). Ben Elton makes a cameo appearance as a new age traveller in the first series. Although there are bound to be comparisons made with Blackadder, these are unfair as they are both in differrent classes. However, there are obvious similarities in the topical satire and digs at modern establishment. Fowler is not incompetent, nor do his staff make him appear to be so. in fact, they very rarely get it wrong in the pursuit of justice. (except when they arrested the wrong carol singers). The episode on Sir Paul Condon's press release, racism and asylum seekers ( Ism Ism Ism) was particularly relevant to the times, not to mention hilarious (Fowler pretending to be an asylum seeking martian)

This is by far Rowan Atkinson's best role as the police chief in a small village. I love this show about cops. Unlike NYPD Blue, these cops are more like the Keystone kops. Officer Habib is the politically correct Pakistani Muslim and she has to fend off the mild advances of a rather effeminate male officer. Of course the laughs don't end there, Rowan's character has a longtime relationship with a female officer. When Rowan's part forgets to renew their standing orders during his lunch hour at the bank, she has to go and lose an hour of her time. When she gets there, she telephones "I'm being held up." His response, "They really should hire more people at the Bank." She says "No Raymond, it's a hold up." Soon the police get there. The robbers want pizza and Raymond delivers. It's one of the funniest episodes in recent years.