Category Archives: Abduction

Mary Higgens Clark Mysteries (2021)

From MHz Choice:

Mary Higgins Clark is the Queen of Suspense, with over 3.7 million books sold worldwide. She is the all-time bestselling fiction author in France, where she received the Grand Prix de Littérature Policiè re in 1980 and was named Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in the Legion of Honor. Now, the acclaimed novelist is reinvented in a new series of TV movies based on her most popular mysteries, with thrilling plots, gorgeous scenery and nerve-shattering suspense.

From MHz CHoice you can stream 2 seasons. Season 1 contains 3 episodes and  season 2 contains 4 episodes. Each episode lasts 1.5 hours. French with subtitles.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this author, the following comes from Wikipedia:

Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins Clark[1] (December 24, 1927 – January 31, 2020)[2] was an American author of suspense novels. Each of her 51 books was a bestseller in the United States and various European countries, and all of her novels remained in print as of 2015, with her debut suspense novel, Where Are the Children?, in its seventy-fifth printing.

2021 is probably not the correct date, but MHz Choice gives no date for when the series were created.

As our first quote from MHz Choice shows, her suspense novels were greatly admired in France. No wonder then, that this series comes from France with English subtitles. Look sharp because in each episode for a short screen shot someone is reading one of her plainly visible novels.

Suspense indeed!  With such engaging plots that drive to a tense conclusion, I can heartily recommend these 7 episodes.

Above Suspicion (2009)

From Amazon Prime:

Does rookie detective Anna Travis have what it takes to succeed in what is still mostly a man’s world? Based on the bestselling novels by Lynda La Plante, this hit British police drama is a “younger, sassier successor to Prime Suspect” (The Telegraph, U.K.)

From Amazon Prime you can stream seasons 1 and 2 of the 4 existing seasons. Season 1 consists of 2 episodes lasting roughly an hour each. Season 2 consists of 3 episodes each lasting about 45 minutes.

“Grim” is the word that immediately comes to mind.  An effort was made to present some really gory scenes.  Fortunately the two stories offer plots that are good enough to warrant watching. Fortunately, I say, because the lead detective DCS James Langton is played by Ciarán Hinds who as a loud ham of an actor is a bit hard to take.  His sidekick opponent Anna Travis learns to stand up to Langton’s offish bullying.

Gory but watchable.

Gone For Good (2021)

From Netflix:

Ten years after losing two loved ones, a man is plunged into another dizzying mystery when his girlfriend vanishes. Based on a Harlan Coben novel.

From Netflix you can stream the 6 episodes, each episode less than one hour, of the serialized adaptation of Coben’s 2001 novel of the same name. French with English subtitles.

Even the reviews of Coben’s novel complain that this is not one of his better novels.  Confusing plot twists, hard to accept events, and other defects, despite the many action sequences, make the story sadly forgettable.

In fact, I was tempted to stop watching the series.  Either read a different Coben novel or find a film adaptation of some other Coben story.

Forget it!

Nice Package (2016)

From IMDB:

A wannabe professional thief, his gay best friend, a sexy hostage, some thugs and a mystery package everyone wants.

From Amazon Prime you can stream this 1 hour 38 minute complete film.

If vulgarity, goofy characters, tongue-in-cheek violence, satiric sex scenes, and absurd conversations are your thing, this barely acceptable trash will hopefully provide you with some laughs.

Motto: I LOVE TRASH!

Manifest (2020)

From Netflix:

When a plane mysteriously lands years after takeoff, the people onboard return to a world that has moved on without them and face strange, new realities.

From Netflix you can stream two seasons of this fairly awful series. Season 1 has 16 episodes and season 2 has 13 episodes.  Every single episode lasts exactly 42 minutes, which may have been the only technical achievement of the series.

Holy Maudlin!  There were enough tears shed during this slop opera to irrigate California.

Holy Unbelievable! Find yourself in a tight spot?  Just invent some miraculous paranormal intervention.

Holy Gullible! How on earth could I watch all 29 episodes expecting to be satisfied with the ending.  Perhaps it is because I LOVE TRASH.

MISS!

Blinded: Those Who Kill (2021)

From Amazon Prime:

Five years ago, a serial killer murdered three young men but was never found. Now, criminal profiler Louise Bergstein is asked by the terminally ill mother of a victim to help solve the case. Teaming up with the police, Louise discovers a distinct pattern to the killings-and the hunt only intensifies as the murderer strikes again in this Danish thriller. CONTAINS VIOLENCE AND GRAPHIC SCENES.

From Amazon Prime you can stream the 8 episodes of this well-done Danish serial-killer series.  Each episode lasts about 45 minutes. English subtitles.

From the very beginning you know who the killer is: Peter is a father with son Johannes . Peter’s marriage has failed and his wife has moved to Singapore.  Louise and Karina are two of the detectives working to solve the case. Louise is a profiler who, in an original plot twist , completely fails to recognize as killer the handsome man whom she meets quite by accident, after which the plot thickens a bit.

Poor Johannes is baffled by the strange behavior of his father. Johannes sorely misses his mother but is prevented by his father Peter from seeing her.

Because Peter kidnaps and tortures his victims,  the crime photographs can be quite gory.  But because the series is done so well, if you can get past the ugliness, DO NOT MISS!

Electric Dreams (2018)

From IMDB:

A sci-fi anthology series with stand-alone episodes based on the works of Philip K. Dick.

From Amazon Prime:

Based on the short stories from one of science fiction’s most prolific authors, Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams explores humanity in 10 standalone episodes. From 5 to 5000 years in the future, each story in the anthology will question what it means to be human in uniquely ambitious, grounded, yet fantastical worlds.

From Amazon Prime you can stream 10 episodes, each lasting about 50 minutes.

Highly original, sci-fi fantastical, expensive production details, but for the most part DEPRESSING.

Do most futurists promote dim prospects for the future?  If there is one recurring theme in these episodes it is that of mankind surrendering its self-determined responsibility.  Do we allow some domineering authority to think for us?  Has earth become uninhabitable?  Do we prefer dream life to reality?  Shall we program robots to take over?  Will aliens inhabit our bodies?

At least episode 8 has an impossible but happy ending.

Great sci-fi but somewhat dire prospects for humans.

Allmen (2016)

From MHz Choice:

Humorous, fast-paced detective stories about the exploits of Johann Friedrich von Allmen, gentleman art thief turned amateur sleuth. Based on the novels by Martin Suter.

From MHz Choice you can stream 3 episodes of this German series. Each episode lasts about 1 hour and 27 minutes. English subtitles.

Allmen is a gentlemen with champagne tastes but unfortunately often in great debt to such an extreme that he is about to be evicted from his palatial family estate.  At every turn he is accompanied by his faithful but usually worried valet Carlos.  In fact Carlos has every right to fear of the safety of his boss who constantly puts the both of them in mortal danger. Allmen could be described both as an expert in the finer things of life and also as a clever deadbeat.  Watch him bluff his way into getting a suite in a luxurious hotel without paying a dime.  Along the way and throughout the series he is involved with the beautiful millionairess Joelle ‘Jojo’ Hirt.   Carlos also finds the love of his life, Maria Moreno.

Think of the series as a mannered theatrical tour through beautiful places accompanied by detailed discussions of luxury possessions and consistently droll conversations.

 

Startup (2018)

From IMDB:

A desperate banker, a Haitian-American gang lord and a Cuban-American hacker are forced to work together to unwittingly create their version of the American dream – organized crime 2.0.

From Netflix you can stream 3 seasons of this series.  Each season consists of 10 episodes. Each episode lasts about 45 minutes.

If there is any current prototype of the 21st century technical world, this series is certainly in the running.  Topics include anonymous networks, cryptocurrency, NSA, security, CIA, black ops, offshore accounts, gang violence, crime ridden neighborhoods, criminal activity, Russian mobsters, rogue FBI agents, personal betrayal, and romance to name a few.

But above all for me the most important theme was redemption in the sense that people can change for the better.  First consider the character Ronald Dacey played by Edi Cathegi (born in Kenya).  Herein is a warning:  In the beginning of the series Ronald is the brutal leader of a Haitian gang in Los Angeles.  Don’t let the scenes of torture turn you away from the series.  Indeed the “redeeming” feature here is that Ronald in addition to being a brutal killer is also a loving husband and father.  As the story progresses, Ronald grows increasingly aware that the violence is self-defeating.  His basic and thinking humanity more and more shines through. He fights especially to keep his son on a straight path, not an easy task in their environment.  Ronald is never a saint, but his heart is more or less in the right place.

Next consider the rogue FBI agent Phil Rask played by the British actor Martin Freeman, who played Watson to Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes.  Freeman’s consistently idiosyncratic portrayal of Agent Rask is a pleasure to watch. More to the point of “redemption”, despite his many misdeeds he does have a conscience which begins to nag at him, which becomes fortunate for other characters later on in the plot.

Eventually you may become intimately concerned with the other players:  Adam Brody as Nick Talman, Otmara Marrero as Izzy Morales, Ron Perlman as Wes Chandler, and Addison Timlin as Mara Chandler.

And if you want some really nasty villains, there are two remarkable sociopaths Vera Cherny as the Russian mobstress (if there is such a word) and Mira Sorvino as the ruthless NSA-CIA black operator Rebecca Stroud.

DO NOT MISS!

Van der Valk (2020)

From IMDB:

A Dutch detective takes on criminal cases in Amsterdam using insightful human observation and his natural street smarts.

From PBS Passport you can stream 3 episodes of this Dutch detective series. Each episode lasts about 1.5 hours.

Episode 1: Love in Amsterdam and episode 2: Only in Amsterdam are clever,  engaging, and develops the characters well.  Although the story line in episode 3: Death in Amsterdam is not so interesting, still the episode continues to develop the characters and has an exciting gun battle at the end. We also finally get to see what is preventing Van der Valk from forming a permanent relationship.

One thread that is compelling and annoying is Van der Valk’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge the talents of the newcomer Job Cloovers.  That theme has a satisfying conclusion in the third episode.

If you only watch the first two episodes, I still say

DO NOT MISS!