Reviews

I teach History outside Dachau and have been involved with the memorial site and give tours around Munich. So I know the history behind this adaptation of the book. Seeing the trailer, I was excited to see familiar buildings such as the former Führerbau (where I met the author, Robert Harris) even if there was the disquieting knowledge that the city (as well as Berlin I noted) allowed once again to have American money justify decking the town in Nazi flags.

I don't want to get into the historical aspects too much- it's impossible to do justice to the period within the confines of a two hour drama and books have been written concerning the real Chamberlain and the type of characterisation employed here. So a few observations: 1. I don't understand the tension. Will war be avoided or not? Well, we know it was... for about a year. Given it took place regardless, what's the point about being worked up about Munich?

2. The Macguffin in the form of the document outlining Hitler's real plans. Why does it have to be hand-delivered to Chamberlain personally? How was it even possible? OK- Hitler's really planning for war. We knew that! Why rely on some document when we had Mein Kampf published back in 1925? We knew he'd eventually turn on the Soviets; that's why we took Stalin's support for granted. I just don't get it. Chamberlain is expected not to sign the Munich agreement within the next couple of hours- against the most profound wishes of the vast majority of his country- because of some German document he can't read (he never brought any German speakers to the conference!), has no idea where it comes from, who produced it, how legitimate it is... Meanwhile the Germans themselves are showing no interest in getting rid of Hitler- they'd just taken Austria!

3. All the tension seems to be artificial to create it.

I) So the German protagonist somehow gets a private interview with Hitler in his Prinzregentplatz apartment. Able to smuggle a gun in. Will he shoot Hitler or not? The tension... What tension? Why is this guy even against Hitler in the first place? The show makes such a big deal about how this guy was a Nazi fanatic. He's even shown out of control in a restaurant openly expressing loudly his Hitler support (in a restaurant he didn't want to go to because I assume he thought it wasn't Nazi enough?). Hitler never changed. His views never changed. He wasn't a libertarian at first and then woke up and came up with this diabolical plan. So how does this guy completely change? And given how eccentric he is depicted as being, how does he ever get into a position of such responsibility in the first place?

Ii) His SD mate attacks the hero in his hotel. Huh? This is a guy who is one of, what, six guys in the British delegation officially representing the UK. Some guy breaks into his room and then beats him up in uniform! Does that even make any sense?

Iii) The female characters are unfortunately two dimensional. This is understandable given the period of time, but because they have no power, influence, role, they're reduced to being emotional, self-absorbed people. The hero's wife is more concerned that her husband isn't spending enough time on her rather than him successfully help prevent a second world war. They have a son- isn't she concerned that he'll grow up in a much more dangerous world that may require him to fight and die? Seriously- what is her problem? Why is she even involved in the story besides create a sense of artificial tension (or, for an excuse to give role for women and minorities)? If anything, it just emasculates the hero so much (I forget his name he's so forgettable) that one is embarrassed to be British.

3. Roles created for minorities are reduced to token characters. The secretary is now an East Indian albeit actually from Nottingham. Why the need to turn her into a minority- an even greater one in 1938? The actress involved stated that she was inspired to take on the role (a colourblind white role played by an ethnic minority) by the story of real-life heroines like Noor Inayat Khan who was was murdered near where I live, bravely fighting in the resistance against Nazism whilst at the same time being bitterly opposed to British control of her country. That's what inspired her understanding of her character who happens to be nothing more than a typist? I find that insulting.

Nevertheless she's of course sassy and opinionated and just the sort of person to entrust the Prime Minister's planned speech for secret transmission.

A top ranking British official has to be black. This is 1938 nearly two decades before immigration from the Caribbean. This historical revisionism is dangerous given the message it sends. The British are portrayed as, if not multicultural, at least open at the time to colonials when we still had India and 1/4 of Africa. There was no reason given- such a character is not fleshed out but exists simply to present a black face. Besides my criticism about the need nowadays to create superfluous, token roles by which to reduce actual humans into mere memes, this is important for such a show- the British and Americans were plenty racist at the time. Brits for the most part weren't going on about the Jews as they are made to do here- the Evian conference showed that. They took part in the 1936 Games despite the violence directed against Jews (and others). And yet here the British are told at one point that they're not in any position to take a moral stand without any reason ever given.

4. And finally, in terms of characters. Whilst I thought Irons did a good job as Chamberlain such as the part created for him, Hitler was just strange. Gaunt within an oversized uniform, it finally struck me- the actor had earlier payed Göbbels in Der Untergang. Talk about being typecast.

The writers are throwing in the kitchen sink by now. The victim wasn't even a "special victim", so why SVU is wasting its time and resources on the case is left unexplained. What was the point of putting so much effort in presenting a suspect who happens to be an Italian immigrant who has not been able to sleep for 15 months, three shy from what is usually determined to be the time victims expire, only to drop the character and move on? It's no wonder that Stabler himself looked bemused when they were taking leave of him. It was a lazy attempt at a MacGuffin which did nothing to move the plot in a sensible direction. To end the episode with a forced use of 'twincest' also reeks of desperation for scandal rather than imaginative writing. The final nail in the coffin is the re-used music that is heard at the club playing in the background which is identical to that used in the background of the Law and Order: Criminal Intent episode "Purgatory." Even the stock music is redundant.

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No wonder my wife watches these episodes twice without remembering the first time; all these plot convolutions and deus ex machinas popping up would confuse anyone. Let's see: A woman is killed by another woman at a party. The deceased (or soon to be) is raped by a member of the ambulance crew. Who then kills himself by smashing a window in a café, running from police with guns drawn into his ambulance, locks the door, and has the police watch helplessly as he jabs his neck with the kind of fast-acting poison one expects to find in ambulances. Sod that, because it just so happens that they stumbled upon him and his partner by determining that they were involved in theft at an open house. But instead the theft just so happened was caused by the mother of the child Olivia is looking after. How many live in New York City currently? I thought things were getting better there... Anyway, this woman is now living in sin with another woman who, out of their minds on drugs, manage to nevertheless completely manipulate the judicial system. Until the other woman is killed by the biological father of the boy Olivia is looking after. But not before another guest appearance occurs involving the earlier suspect in the killing of the boy's mother's rapist. But he just happened to be there. No connection to the murder at all. Then this woman, who is allowed to walk around the streets of NYC at will, connives to have her son taken from a respected pillar of the community to live with the parents of the man who killed her "soul mate." Wait a minute- wasn't there a woman's murder at the very beginning that was supposed to be dealt with? I shudder to think what Law and Order UK must be like.... www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com

My main issue with this series is the complete lack of nuance, of subtlety. Holmes is manic in a way to draw attention to it rather than to use it. His order to "shut up" to someone for simply thinking is a case in point; written in not to develop the story or add to the characterisation but rather to make an empty and quick guffaw. Watson is the not "the perfect foil" as another reviewer would have it. Unlike the stories, his presence is completely superfluous. Far from convincing anyone that this could have been a man back from the wars who has seen more than most, this Watson pathetically gets picked up by the police with a tin of spraypaint in his hand, or is reduced to constantly moaning about being left outside crime scenes whilst Holmes does the work. His expertise and experience count for nothing, he shows no interest in recording his observations or demonstrate anything more than a blank look after seeing Holmes's inductions that he is a character without purpose. The "Blind Banker" was an extremely weak episode not only in leaving none of the characters with a strong enough personality to drag along the pace, but rather ignorant assumptions about China which, although unnoticed by the average viewer, rather put off my Chinese wife whose hometown apparently has a unique code of numbering unknown to her. Having lived in Dalian, the use of Cantonese for people made to come from there was strange, especially given that the so-called 'spiderman' was given a Mandarin term. The music is intriguing but its Arabesque flavour irrelevant to the storyline. This is not to criticise the fine acting, crisp pacing and editing, and impressive visuals. But it is clearly a product of its time- Sherlock Holmes done in an age of advertisements and ipods rather than a fully- textured product. In other words it serves not as a work of its own, but rather is left merely as an interesting retelling without adding to the tale. www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com

What a disappointment.My wife and I resumed our watching of SVU as we've just moved to Germany from China (I should point out that the necklace is obviously from the Mosuo in Hunan province, not Tibetan), and the first couple of episodes were well done compared to the way things had been going. But this was nonsense. Over-the-top melodrama, music and lines with a crazed French woman who happens to have a doctorate and is provided with the funds from prestigious organisations to travel the world researching tribes.I kept looking at my watch to see when it would turn out that this woman- crazed, sociopathic to the point of semi-autistic,capable of murdering people and hiring others to help her kidnap her child to take with her to China to live with tribes (it was hard enough for me to live eight years in Peking)- was actually innocent and it was the husband who came up with the idea of kidnapping the child independent of the wife and beat her to it. It wasn't until the final act where one male (child) is dead, the man himself laid low by a blow from a passionate femme fatale straight out from Medea, another shot but able to direct another to make inch cuts into her, and the final one declaring that her mastectomy made her stronger that I saw where it was going. www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com

Everyone loves "Mad Dog" Collins- a lovable dog, a crippled girl half his age who talks like an eight-year old, her grandpa (who played the doctor in The Invisible Man), and the cynical Ida Lupino. But why? Bogart hardly shows any wit, humour or charisma towards any of the characters. Nor can it be understood why Bogart would choose the childlike Velma over the jaw-dropping Lupina who oozes sex and is practically begging it Bogie-style. "Don't talk like a sap" Bogart tells Lupina, but that would be characteristic of most of the dialogue despite one reviewer's claims that it is "witty." The film seems uncertain as to what direction it wants to take- either a Chaplinesque syrupy romance demanding double-takes, gaping mouths and wide-eyes from its actors and tears and vulnerable innocence from its actresses. Throw in a cross-eyed "coloured boy" who of course is always asleep and a few books short of a library and invulnerable police and you have a film that seems dated even for 1941 standards. As a result the film, already lengthy at 100 minutes, drags until the obligatory final chase (which I must say is creditable). This is not helped by the ultimately pointless diversion involving the doddering old man who is introduced to "Mad Dog" by a pseudonym and yet, the next meeting refers to him by his real name after a contrived coincidence which has Bogart fall in love with a child. www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com

Wow, what a powerful episode! It brought back memories for me as a care assistant years ago for people with MS, so perhaps despite the melodrama I was deeply moved. All too often L&O lathers it a bit thick making the plots overly trite. Such is the case here where Jill Scott portrays the diabolically evil sister, whose the son's feebleness jarred with the measures he took against his aunt's attacker. At least I feel I wasn't subjected to another soapbox rant! As always for me, what stands out is the acting by the ensemble, and the scene showing the video of abuse was absolutely raw; it is hard to remember ever seeing such a scene on a television drama in some time. I would be curious as to the veracity of the Connecticut case involving Westlaw and LexisNexus. www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com

Last week I found myself in a debate with a colleague who had no appreciation or understanding of old films; to him, they are all defective in having staged acting which does not bear relation to reality. I gave several examples of films whose emotional impact continue in an age when films are more about product placement than in making works of art, but I'm grateful he hadn't seen this film. Forget Heston as a Mexican (told to "speak English already" in the bar-room scene after Heston's ham-fisted attempts to string three Spanish words together). Janet Leigh plays the same type of 50s 'broad' as can be seen in nearly every B movie or TV show of the time. Both her and Heston's reactions to threats directed against them are so limp as to affect my own concern for them or build up any feeling of tension. A good example is when Leigh and Heston drive off with no thought at all about bombs in the trunk or worrying about the fact there's no roof. Another is shown in the scene after Grande is slapping around some hoodlum who threw acid at Heston. (Acid! And not a drop reached its target, despite the 'care' he took in trailing Heston). The young tough runs and backs into someone who just happens to have come out from nowhere- more style over substance. The cinematographic window-dressing throughout doesn't make an episode of Dragnet into a Third Man. The slaps themselves are administered in such a ludicrous way that the kid doesn't even react to them. Eccentric people hiding behind pillars and peering through windows and suddenly popping up 'dramatically' from theatrical shadows just gets tedious 30 minutes in and, like the jarring music, never relents. www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com

Being very much interested in the crusades, I gave this movie a fourth chance hoping, as I reviewed the history, that I could fill in the movie's blanks, inconsistencies and occasional nonsense and come away with more. This is made all the more difficult when the director skews the history to serve his purposes. I don't write that disparaging any perceived "liberal" bias as one with tremendous respect for Scott, but he misuses the past so egregiously to fit in a incoherent plot full of such coincidences and examples of 'deus ex machina' that one can only throw up one's hands. With nearly 400 reviews, it seems presumptuous to add one more, but some immediate issues: I bought the 2-disk 'director's cut,' complete with overture before the film starts with France literally in darkness. I understand the orthodox view of the "Dark Ages", but it was ridiculous. Battle scenes, as is typical of Scott films, are difficult to make out and sacrifice realism (knights rushing in with drawn swords against lances) for stop-jerk action. Balian's meeting of his father is given no explanation, and the entire time between them resolves neither the maddeningly unclear background or the vague notions of rank and the duty required. His journey to Jerusalem where his ship is run aground by a storm leaving him and a horse the sole survivors is a cop-out. As is the fact everyone can understand his specific French dialect no matter who he encounters or on which part of the earth's surface. To see a mere, common blacksmith telling King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem the problem with its fortifications, coming up with the (up to that point of time in history) novel idea of a 'star' system of fortifications. The land he takes from his educated, world-weary father he manages to immediately improve, coming up with more ideas no-one else in the whole of the planet thought up. And throughout we hear of Jerusalem being "a kingdom of conscience" without any sense of understanding what made people from throughout Europe come to die through their beliefs. So we have a movie of Christian protagonists without any chance of Christian ideology intruding. www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com

The episode again made me shake my head at the contrived plot, where an unsympathetic rape victim suddenly falls dead of the flesh-eating disease. Researching the disease itself, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, it does appear that it can spread quickly throughout the body before causing death. Despite the contagious nature of the disease, little precaution seemed to be in place to prevent infection; Olivia in fact held her hand as she lay dying without any protection. I too decided to research the issue of rape in the Congo which is involved in the story; again a witness is presented in SVU who comes from darkest Africa whose past seems tainted by terrorist paramilitary groups. I thought how I would feel as a Congolese to have my country (the largest in Africa after Algeria) reduced to a line about how rape is commonplace. Again, I learned something important. But I fear in doing so, the plots are becoming less than public service announcements and Law and Order being reduced to a soap box. www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com

I enjoy and respect L&O SVU but this episode was easily the most infuriating I have seen; enough so that, for the first time, I walked away in disgust. The final trial scene, where a public prosecutor starts attacking her own witness, sounded like the writers gave vent to their loathing of Fox news and decided to subject the viewers to their soap-box rant. The resulting fracas where thugs attack each other in a court of law added to the farce. With the previous episode involving a biker gang managing to remove white blood cells and actually manipulating DNA was ridiculous enough, watching this makes me think the series has replaced its integrity for the pleasure of broadcasting its own prejudices. I am not suggesting that I don't share the concerns expressed on the show regarding broadcasters who show no responsibility for their rants, but it should not do so at the expense of the story. I would have thought the likes of O'Reilly, Beck an Limbaugh would be easy enough to denigrate without descending into overblown histrionics. The MO of the murders also defied any sense of reality and makes me question what motivated the writers to resort to it. I am especially disturbed by this episode as it was my girlfriend who introduced the show to me here in China; freedom of speech is something I hold dearly, and having to live in a country that shows absolute contempt for the values I cherish makes me angry when the regime is given another excuse to justify its suppression of free speech and information. www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com

The one thing that stands out about this episode was the Doctor who McNamara approached who had been involved in malpractice and who turns out to have been his role model. I racked my brain to try to identify the actor until I realised it was Geoffery Lewis in a truly subtle, nuanced and emotional role. I hadn't seen his work for so long (I think maybe an X Files episode ten years ago) and it was good to see him still working. The issue of transgenderism was also sensitively dealt with, but apart from Lewis's appearance, there is little else about this episode to set it apart from others. The concerns Matt had about possible STDs resulting from a one-night stand was not as believable, but then I'm rather watching the show backwards and hate the character. www.tracesofevil.blogspot.com