Reviews

Interesting concept but totally unrealistic, more like a cartoon than real life. "We've done everything else, what can we come up with that's new and will sell the most soap?"...seems to be the motivation for most new TV shows, this one included. If they would have done it as a finance or science genius, that would have been more realistic, but a hospital setting is all wrong, as lives are at stake, not just money or inventions.

I like Freddie Highmore in it, and also his boss the president of the hospital, but the others don't have a clue how hospital personnel act. Where is the medical consultant for the program who should advise on these things? The staff is so slow, casual, unhurried, no sense of urgency even when transporting a donor liver. And the argumentative bantering constantly?.......not at all realistic and very soap opera-ish. Political infighting yes, but not constant petty bitching and complaining. Too busy for that in real life.

Too many problems for this show to last beyond a few episodes unless the Good Doctor suddenly transforms into SuperBatSpiderman Doctor. Then it would surely be a big success, American TV being what it is today.

Not too much I liked about this film. Emotionless story for the most part, with mostly repetitive bombing and killing and a soundtrack that was deafening and unrelenting. The film's color was also washed out which bled any potential emotion from it. Character development was non-existent. Mostly scenes of scared to death young men trying to survive.

Didn't like at all the 3 stories in one gimmicky approach to this important historical event. Scenes constantly jumped from one of the 3 stories to the another with no relationship to the last scene shown, only to the last scene of the same story shown earlier. Also, too much repetition and different angles of air attacks, with soldiers constantly in the water from bombings and too little of anything else that made Dunkirk the historical war icon that it is known to be. For example, in one scene it was disheartening and historically inaccurate to show one destroyer that didn't even fire a shot at a bomber that sunk it even as the plane was clearly visible from miles off. And, the many plane dog fights were too repetitive and did not look realistic for the most part. There were also too many scenes that looked "off" in historical accuracy to me, one example being the one of soldiers in an abandoned boat on the beach, being shot at by an unseen shooter, but none of the soldiers were killed or even hit by the many bullets that pierced the boat's sides. Not one.

The entire story and editing of the film annoyed me to the point that I ended up not caring much what happened at the end. That is never a good thing in a war movie. The different time lines of the 3 stories were more than disorienting at times as the film cut from story to story and back again, with all time in each......suspended.

If this famous filmmaker wanted to make a documentary, he should have made one. What was missing was a dramatic movie. To me, bad form to mix the two but keep an emotion-starved, washed-out color, documentary style story throughout. This story could have been told and shown a lot better.

This is an 8 episode crime series filmed in Russia, with leads no one has ever seen before. Very interesting premise, that of a uniquely gifted man with an extremely acute sense of smell, more like a wild animal than a human, and which leads him to try to solve violent crimes by smelling various trace scents left at the crime scenes, and on suspects and victims. This he does under the solid direction of his good friend, a dedicated police colonel, and a confirmed bachelor and playboy.

The stereotypical Eastern European cynical sarcasm was at full boil at all times in the Sniffer, with him seen calmly disdaining and insulting almost everyone around him as he arrogantly helps the colonel work through difficult crime solving. An added bonus to me was the fine depiction of a modern Russian city, and how similar the location city(Kiev)was to the rest of the 1st world.

Great and creative use was made of wispy smoke imagery that formed from the scents the Sniffer smelled at crime scenes, smoky visions of what really happened there. That effect added greatly to the series' overall production values. Also, the show co-starred who I think is the most beautiful female actor in film, the gorgeous doctor love interest of the Sniffer. What an incredible beauty, and very classy.

Weak point...white subtitles that were often poorly translated, and so often not enough time on screen was allowed for the viewer to thoroughly read them, and the words were often obscured by the background colors.

I liked this series for its glimpse of a modern Russian city, for the unique story premise, for the good acting, and for its style of storytelling that was more realistic than today's American crime story TV. I also liked that each episode was a complete story where the crime was solved.

And, of course, I liked it for the gorgeous lady doctor. Hope to see more episodes of this show, and of her. Wow. Even Trump would surely give her an 11.

Typically great PBS Mystery, but much better than most. Shaun Evans as Endeavour Morse, with his childlike deer in the headlights look as he detects each weekly crime, portrays the young but already very cerebral Morse whom we remember so well as an elder copper from the great 90s PBS show. Evans' as Morse, with his deceptive appearance of innocence and naivete, works through crimes with gentle but bulldog persistence until all is sorted. Roger Allam as his stoic, staid, habit-bound chief detective is also superb in his unwavering, fatherly support of Morse throughout, is always 100% credible as a mid-level Brit copper. Anton Lesser plays his daft martinet of a superintendent as not totally stupid, but he is perfectly underwhelming on purpose as Supt. Bright(hmmm)and is much more consumed with political kissing up than he is with the drudgery of everyday police work. He leaves that to the minions. All in all, great ensemble work, with very individual and unique characterizations in all roles, and I must say that I am so pleased that PBS has not fallen into the common American TV crime show trap of extending one crime into seeming infinity, week after slogging week. Thanks to this Morse, all is saved, and solved, in each show. The gorgeous and dramatic theme and various opera and classical pieces play a significant qualitative part too, as they both did in the original Morse show. Anticipate, then enjoy.

The kind of film America doesn't make any longer. My favorite actor, Ricardo Darin, is at his best once again. Soulful, sad, bitter and mistrustful, this frugal shopkeeper tends his tiny hardware store, making for a meager life living in the spartan rear apartment, but liking the solitude he craves more than anything. Into his very habitual and solitary life comes a Chinese total stranger who speaks no Spanish, and his life changes forever due to his charity to a fellow man in great need. At first, not for the best, but always hopeful. Story development was so well paced.......even, calm, quiet and reserved, just as the characters were, but as deeply moving as it was believable. No gimmicks, no gadgets, no fake steps, just a simple and honest human story well told and acted.

Excellent acting from the 3 leads, truly honest, with Darin shining as bright as ever with soul leaking from every pore, as is his trademark, and what makes him one of the world's greatest actors.

In my long life I have often questioned the brotherhood of man, but this is the kind of story that makes one feel that it can and does exist. Don't miss this story, and be better off for it.

Liked the India part way best, with little Saroo lost and bewildered trying to get home. In Tasmania, to me, the story faltered and was inconsistent with a lot of logic and story flow flaws. Not getting overwhelmed by emotion, I looked for the bits and pieces that told a complete story of a lost kid's almost divine rescue from probable tragedy. Little Sunny was great as Little Saroo, and Dev Patel was good as older Saroo. Nicole Kidman was also really good as his adoptive mom.

As an internet researcher, I found that older Saroo was not very good at connecting the dots in order to find his home and his Mum in India. If I did it, first I would best figure how far he traveled by time and train speed, find a town name that was closest to what he remembered it to be, find if it had a water tower, then a covered rail station, sited next to woods and a rock quarry, on and on. Wouldn't take long, certainly not as long as it took him, so that was a very weak part to me, but it added to movie drama, of course. And, I must allow that he was delayed in his search by his dreams progressively telling him more details about his childhood home that led him further into his search.

Sorry to get so scientific about such an emotional movie, but I saw too many realism flaws to make it a more rewarding story to me in the second half. And, after I saw the harshness of poor India the closest thing I had to an tearful emotional moment was..........God Bless America.

Sorry, could not get into this film as it was poorly told, and in its selection of the lead actor who portrayed the actual young artist. The kid in the lead was so not an artist type and showed it though very amateurish "acting" and "typical modern dude" body language. In addition, too many of the film's production values in the 20 minutes I watched were poorly and cheaply done..... The old artist's rickety front door in one closeup shot was obviously a prop as it's frame shook violently whenever the door closed.... The purposefully filthy car windows when the rest of the kid's car was clean..... The kid's odd gift to the old artist of a bottle of vodka when it was obvious he was not old enough to buy it..... The look and body language of a typical high school teenager of today was so incongruous with the true behavior and look of the type of boy in the early 70s who hungered and worked with all his soul to be a true and honest artist more than anything else in life. Details are crucial to an artist, but this filmmaker didn't care enough to honor that need for gravitas in his film. Plus out-of-place profanity, cliché characters and dialogue.......on and on. Not for me. This was not the well crafted film I expected about a dedicated young artist's search for soul-satisfying self expression. It was ordinary, unskilled and uninteresting.

Cannot agree with the superlatives given by some of the other reviewers, as it seems to me they saw a different movie that the one I briefly watched. If a story of something I know a lot about cannot grab my attention and credibility in 20 or so minutes, no thanks.

For the first few episodes I liked the show, but very soon it became clear than this was a "reality" show first, with reality far down the list. The show had mostly good workers and bosses mixed in with a few AH business owners, and along with Marcus they all did the same/similar thing throughout each show. Life, and business, is not like that. Every episode has much drama added, with disagreements, tears, crying, hugs, etc. and everyone ending up happy except for the few that don't work out. Do any of the shown companies even exist? I have never seen any sign of any of them. The last show I saw, the owner was definitely mugging for the camera and it all came clear to me. It's fake. I'm through with the show even as I do like Marcus and think he is a great businessman. Sorry they could not be honest about the show instead of phony just to get ratings(and money!).

Such terrible detective work resulted in so many dead who should not have died if the search for the serial killer was even competent, let alone good. The killer could have been caught so much earlier than the 11 years it finally took due to awful detective work that did not even consider two key tactics not used early on....those of surveillance and decoys. Once the killer's MO was discovered and his identity was suspected early on, he should have been placed under close surveillance 24/7, with special attention given to RR stations after those locations were determined to be the ones most likely to expose the suspect in the act of enticing his next victim. Also, using a decoy would have supplemented the first tactic and may have been even more immediately successful. Absolutely the worst police work I have ever seen in a modern film story, and totally embarrassing to anyone who has ever been on the the job, but may have been somewhat realistic considering that it happened in Russia in the 80s.

That said, the movie was a pretty slow slog with little progress through the years, albeit massively hindered by many total political incompetents with their communist militaristic mindset and rigidity. Only by the persistence of the impassioned doctor(Rea)leading the case and the understanding and supportive colonel(Sutherland)in charge of it all was this case finally solved after too many years, all the while using archaic medical tech and police work that allowed so many killings to occur that never should have happened. Without those two dedicated men to find the killer eventually, it surely would never have been solved. A slowly involving story, but maddening for all the incompetence and posturing instead of good police work.

Dan Ireland has created a very touching movie about the dignities and indignities of life intertwined that we all face in varying degrees, and how those occurrences can be changed in a moment. Joan Plowright as Mrs. Palfrey was next to perfect in her role of aging recent widow moved to London and living in a residence hotel in order to get on with the next phase of her life in the most pleasing and dignified ways possible for a woman of her certain age. Most interestingly, Mr. Ireland showed well the odd, standoffish and sterile way the English live and dine in residence hotels, as it was shown to be as entertaining as it was quaint, lonely and sad at times. But, things were soon going to change.............

Mrs Palfrey chanced to meet a handsome but very poor busker who helped her after a fall she had on a sidewalk outside of his spartan flat. Thus blossomed one of the finest film friendships between those of vastly differing ages that I have seen since Harold and Maude. The caring and loving way Rupert Friend's struggling young man character took to Mrs. Palfrey, and was returned by her, was perhaps not something we would not see in a thousand years in real life with most young people today, but its unlikeliness was just the right recipe here for giving both the attention, happiness and improved self worth they both desperately needed at that point in their lives. The entire story was about that blossoming friendship and the rewarding gift it gave to each of them.

Gift yourself and see this film story for a quiet and very high quality perception of aging, life circumstances and the deep value of true friendship, all of which battered down all doors of convention and showed well that true and loving human connections will always be made by differing people having the level of desire and need to do so.

Christopher Plummer is always excellent in his film roles, and he was especially great in this small, contained, but very fine and original suspense drama about an old man suffering from dementia who was a former Auschwitz prisoner. Plummer as Zev, these many years later, now plans revenge against the Nazi executioner who tortured him and killed his Jewish family in that prison camp. At the very end of his quest, something happened that changed everything for him, but that did not affect our earlier engrossed involvement with Zev's long and arduous journey across America to finally find and kill the offending soldier. From the time he escaped his home at a senior center to complete his task, the tension and anxiety as he got closer to his prey completely absorbed our attention, as did his many problems with dementia which kept him perpetually on the fragile edge of present reality and the task at hand, and past reality with his dead wife Ruth.

Another former prisoner at Auschwitz who also lived at the senior center, was played by a sickly Martin Landau. He was the grand orchestrator of the scheme to finally kill the offending soldier from Auschwitz all these years later. The two seniors kept in touch by phone calls as Zev traveled the country, gradually paring the list down to the last man having the same name as the offending soldier. One serious mistake that occurred in his search almost derailed him completely but actually resulted in giving Zev a form of partial revenge satisfaction for his demented mind. But, the actual executioner still eluded him.

Finally meeting the right Nazi soldier abruptly changed everything, and showed us too well what tragic damage dementia can do to one's reasoning, judgement, lucidity, and ability to know what is real and what is not.

See this fine but tragic film for a great story where you never know the real truth until the final and very powerful scene. A true film treasure, and certain to be a classic in the same genre as two much larger classic films, Schindler's List and The Pianist.

The very best police/crime show on TV, even better than Justified and as good or better than many feature crime films. Reminiscent of intelligent British PBS crime shows but made for USA viewers. Both shows have great casts and the best ensemble work, but Bosch is a better and more realistic lead detective than Raylon. Bosch the show is truly believable, without the fake snappy dialogue and low cut cleavage, hottie female detectives seen everywhere on unrealistic network police/crime shows who are thrown in only for sex appeal and are really no more than cheesecake.

Bosch shows police work that is realistic and serious, with violence only where it matters and never taken to extremes. At this point, one major clue I saw stands out that has not been addressed or investigated yet, and it suggests someone truly venal at the top whose identity will surprise most watchers. No hints other than.....corruption. To find the truth, Bosch must catch the bad guy in the last episode. and get him to spill. That bad guy is also the murdered man's wife's lover, and is now thought to be the gang leader along with the wife. For me to be right, Bosch has to get him to spill the name of Mr. Big to really solve the case from the top down. We shall see, and I will admit it if I am wrong. Can't wait to see how it comes together.

This is what quality TV crime shows can be if they show only on premium TV w/o commercials, seek a great ensemble cast plus story and detective realism, and never sink to the low level of typical network police/crime crap that is only made to get people to watch its very costly commercials.

Update: just saw the final episode, and Cash the ex-cop head of the gang was found but did not give up Mr. Big!!! But, maybe in Season 3 we will find out? I know who he is and want them to disclose it but there is more great Bosch to be seen so we will have to wait.

Season 3: Slow, plodding, not up to previous season's work. S3 so far has sadly regressed to the level of many TV cop shows, with more touchy feelie family and personal life complications thrown in instead of the serious cop work solving the crimes as was the case in Seasons 1+2. Do not know if I will watch to season 3's end, as it is not compelling as it once was and is a disappointment in comparison.

Slow, overlong and mostly hard to believe, simple marriage drama, IMO, about a tragic occurrence that happened to the husband 52 years earlier, and 7 years before their marriage, but negatively affecting his wife to the point of continual distraction after she was finally told about it just days short of their 45th anniversary.

Thought the movie an overly obvious and nearly fawning and precious vehicle for Charlotte Rampling. As the wife, she was in nearly every frame, with her many poses done from every possible angle. Tom Courtenay was her husband, who had a long ago lover who died from a mountain glacier fall on a hike with him in Switzerland, and as a result of a new letter regarding something about her, his memory of her came to occupy a part of his mind all these years later, of which his wife came to be neurotically and spitefully jealous. Even as he loved his wife dearly and told her so in tears, she could not leave the jealous thought of the "other woman" behind and move on. (Come on, lady, get a life, an adult life, is what I wanted to tell her many times throughout the film.)

The story was overlong and padded with filler to my distraction, and thus the film was much longer than the story deserved, so simple as it was, with each scene held much longer than was best for full dramatic affect. It actually got boring to see how long so many scenes played that were not that important in telling the story. I am almost 75 years old and those people looked like my parents looked when very old, not like I or my wife look now or any of our friends. Maybe they age earlier in the UK, and that dreary weather every day could just be part of it. Depressing.

Well enough acted by all, just not enough substance or gravitas for a modern feature film. Glad it finally ended, and that ending was abrupt and odd and totally in keeping with a story I did not find satisfying on any believable level. This film may be a critic's darling, as many poor ones are, but it was not a good story well told, in my judgment, and quickly forgettable.

Watched almost to the end of the first episode, then quit on it. The main problem I had with this TV show was that every effort was made to make the lead(looks like Kurt Russell when young)look guilty(too guilty)for the murder of the young boy. Whenever that happens in a TV show these days it is always a red herring, and I am sure he will be proved not to be the killer. Formula, formula, formula. And, what I saw of this show was simple and unsophisticated, and not very smart. Could never align with the lead, as he was so passive as to be almost resigned to whatever happened to him. Maybe it will get better, but may do so without me watching.

I just did not like the way this show was written and presented. Nice Aussie scenery though. Cannot invest the required many hours into a slow program like this one waiting for the crime solution that seems a long slog though deep muck.

Truly moving and compassionate story of a quiet, lonely, and friendless public servant in London, daily laboring diligently in a thankless job that few would want, but he did it so well that his efforts might be called almost "heavenly". To him, his job was important to the point of critical accuracy in documentation, and was much more to him than mere service, it was a passion approaching art. It was his life to sort what remained to be done for those who had died without friends, relatives or anyone who might want or care to know. In that chore he was a Rembrandt, as he was just like those forgotten, meaningless people for whom he tried so hard to give at least some final care. To him, even if not to others, they were worthy.

Whether out and about trying to connect the dots of a deceased person's past, or compiling the found details of same in a little storeroom office, cloistered away every day he carried on, trying to give some level of final dignity to those who may never have had any in life. A proper church funeral, with only him attending, was his way of sending them off with someone looking on, someone knowing and caring that they had lived but were now gone.

This story was very small, as it had to be, and it was perfectly told and acted, with the great Eddie Marsan as the public servant and Joanne Froggatt in a small role as a deceased man's daughter. An excellent and fitting musical score accompanied. The ending was surprising, but as rewarding as an ending could be for a man such as he. Although unrealized to fruition, he did finally find a friend who cared to know him. And, there were others. You will not have a dry eye when you leave the theatre, but I trust that you will have a better heart for it.

So much was left out from the book, as of course it had to be with the limited time frame of a film. But so much of the science that was so interesting to me was omitted, and a lot of unnecessary stuff that bored me was inserted to get butts in the seats. Not much to do for Matt Damon as Mark Watney, the stranded astronaut on Mars, so Hollywood did what it does so well, it added emotional scenes not in the book to get the heartstrings going, but not so much the brain. Some of it was too silly for credibility, from a science perspective.

Great visuals and NASA-type sets though, and I enjoyed those, even as the story was very lacking for those who read the book before.

Glitzy LV is the center of this series about a dour rancher/sheriff v. the casino mob in 1960. Lots of break-your-face action, but little regard is given to the small details that make or break a cop show. For example, in the pilot, a biker could not identify a man on a dark night in the desert but he could see the color of his car as blue? What? Many other errors were just as bad, as with later model cars than 1960. Watch for them.

Dennis Quaid is his laconic, smirky self in his role as the R/S given the sheriff's job of solving a murder that turns into another murder, etc., etc., on and on, all done by the mob or related types, of course. The main casino mobster is the sheriff's primary antagonist and is played by Michael Chiklis of The Shield fame. Dishy female ADA, mobster daughter, and mobster wife are also featured, of course, two of whom will obviously find love with the rancher and his brother in the end, but the wife will not. Also watch for that.

Not a sophisticated series, with a too predictable formula and too much overt violence along with numerous detail errors, but it is a good showcase with great LV strip production values done by Quaid and Chiklis as the two producers and actors who well know what network TV audiences want to see today.

If the gov't and its "employees" ever acted with such intelligence, efficiency and speed as it did throughout this film, in the entire existence of our gov't, it would still be a gross fabrication never to be believed for a second. Facts, maps, details, vehicles, people, passwords, accounts, bad guys, good guys, etc., etc...all were easily found in a tech instant in this fairy tale story. If the gov't was even 1% that good, it would be god and we would worship it. But, of course, it is incompetent, stupid and slow, as we all know, and we all hate it. Did I say it was also corrupt? Fast action is this movie's god, not any level of sense or reality, as it has little else but tech mumbo jumbo and totally impossible action scenes impersonating spy world reality. A costly piece of junk not worth anyone's time over the age of 18.

My numerical vote is a combo of the pilot and the rest, averaging a too-high 5. However, what will come next is surely going to be much lower rated, as the uniqueness, power, intrigue and suspense of the pilot was lost in later episodes, all of which devolved into weirdness and murkiness and expressed sociopathy, which are not typically the best entertainment tools in a continuing story. Too much of that degradation is already in today's TV programming, and after seeing the pilot and thinking "this is really different", it all disappointingly collapsed into muddled junk not worth my continued interest to see where it all leads.

The worst actress since Jane Russell. Oh, that's right, both were hired for their physical talent, not so much otherwise. With McKenzie, her amateurish self consciousness so obviously showing through her mechanical "acting" with every high school play-look she gave us, was too distracting to make even this D movie disguised as a B movie look anything but awful. A few decent actors(John Dehner was one) were in the cast, but McKenzie ruined it for all of them. She had to have done something intimate with a producer to get the role, she was that bad.

Convoluted murder plot too dumb to stand much scrutiny, as this mid-century crime drama was hardly watchable in its "he did it, no he did it, no he did it" moronity. The characters and plot were too dumb to believe for a second.

Fortunately for us, MacKenzie's "acting" career went nowhere, as it should have. Forget this film, a real waste of time.

Way too many AMC commercials for me. Only way to watch it is recorded so the always-present commercials don't ruin it(30 minutes of programming, 30 minutes of commercials, every 5 minutes!) A possible "afterlife" is the premise for the show so far, with a billionaire proposing billion of dollars to the surgeon if she can prove it exists as he is dying and "wants to know". Everything else that happens is subservient to that premise and as such, is mostly filler.

Beals is tops as a no-nonsense hospital surgeon, but it was obvious from the start that she will eventually change her mind about the possibility of an afterlife. You watch, it will happen. Everything that is going to happen in TV these days is telegraphed from miles away, so there is never any mystery about what will follow. Connect the dots. Easy.

Average TV drama, except for the powerful and dynamic presence of Beals. Without her, the show would not be worth it.