Category Archives: Ethical struggles

The Hunters (2018)

From IMDB:

Erik returns to the northernmost of Sweden after a lifetime with Stockholm police [seeThe Hunters (1996) and False Trail (2011)]. Retirement doesn’t become him so he helps his nephew Peter, a rookie at the local police.

From MHz Choice:

Rolf Lassgard stars as a retired Stockholm cop drawn into a mystery in Sweden’s far north.

From MHz Choice you can stream the 6 episodes of this Swedish detective thriller. Each episode lasts about 45 minutes.  Swedish sound track with English subtitles.

Evidently (from IMDB) “The Hunters” was a Swedish TV series that began in 1996.  Rolf Lassgard has played the same Stockholm cop in other installments.  His role as Erik Bäckström is played superbly.

THRILLER is an understatement. You have the privilege of being able to stream all the episodes as fast as you wish, where I had to wait not so patiently for each Tuesday’s new episode to be available.

But then I am always a sucker for plots in which the villain (or in this case villains) is so smoothly corrupt and knows how to seduce others into his corruption while framing others for the crimes. By the time I watched the last episode I was literally shaking with anticipation. Up to the very last moment the bad guys seemed to be winning.

DO NOT MISS!

 

Snails in the Rain (2013)

From IMDB:

Tel Aviv, Summer 1989. Boaz, a beautiful and alluring linguistics student, receives anonymous, male-written, love letters that undermines his sexual identity and interfere with his peaceful life with his beloved girlfriend.

From Amazon Prime you can stream this 1 hour 21 minute Israeli film with English subtitles.

In this well-made gem of a film, the bisexual Boaz is tormented by his homosexual tendencies and fantasies which add conflicting tensions in his relation with his live-in girl friend and lover Noa.  One major aspect of the story is: just who is this male stranger that is writing love letters to Boaz?  Because Boaz is handsome he continually gets admiring glances from women and men. With each such male admiring glance Boaz asks “Is he the one?”

Be prepared for much explicit straight and gay sexual activity . For example to relieve his sexual frustration, Boaz visits gay cruising spots in the park.  But his personal conflicts lead him often to be brutal to Noa and confrontational with male advances.

You will just have to watch the film to see what Boaz’s decision is because I will never tell.

The Silence (2010)

From Acorn TV:

Deaf teenager Amelia (Genevieve Barr, Liar) wants to adjust to the hearing world and escape her overprotective parents (Hugh Bonneville & Gina McKee). But when she witnesses a murder, it jeopardizes the career of her homicide-detective uncle (Douglas Henshall, Shetland) and endangers her whole family. “A stunningly well-made thriller…taut, suspenseful and earth-shatteringly well written” –Express.

From Acorn TV you can stream the 4 episodes of this Irish thriller. Each episode is about an hour.

Talk about tense! In Shetland Douglas Henshall’s character DI Jimmy Perez is calm, thoughtful, persistent, and competent.  In “The Silence” his detective character Jim (characters as found in IMDB have no last names) is persistent, competent, not corrupt, however anything but calm.  And no wonder! His deaf niece Amelia witnesses one corrupt cop murder another cop by running her down with an automobile.  Jim is faced with protecting her while fighting to convince his fellow officers that there are clever, bent cops in the precinct who murder and are drug dealers.  Moreover, because of his exasperated demeanor those bent cops can easily persuade Jim’s  colleagues that Jim has mental problems, which reminds us of Trump’s method of discrediting anyone who disagrees with him.

You will probably recognize some of the other actors such as:

From IMDB we learn some personal facts about the deaf actress Genevieve Barr:  Genevieve Barr was born deaf and normally uses hearing aids. For her role as Amelia, who has just had a cochlear implant fitted, she was required to remove her hearing aids. She also had to learn sign language which she had never done before because she had always relied on her hearing aids supplemented by lip reading.

You might be astounded, disappointed, angry, puzzled, or all of the above after the last (fourth) episode finishes. But that is a notable feature of British plots:  why waste time on the details of an expected warm-feeling finale?  You can figure out for yourself what will happen next. However, if it makes you feel any better, rest assured there are many “outraged” reviews. Here is just one such review from IMDB:

What a Shame!

jeanjeannie3815 July 2010
I watched this, potentially brilliant, mini serial for each of its four days. Each day I really looked forward to the next episode. However, having now watched the whole series, I have reached the conclusion that the drama should have continued for five days instead of four. The fourth episode could very easily have concluded with a cliffhanger concerning the main character. This would have enabled the drama to end in a much more satisfying way. Instead, after watching four days of a truly gripping thriller, the ending was very disappointing. I don’t think merely leaving your audience with a good idea of the probably outcome of a drama is a patch on concluding with a fully rounded ending. Instead of the series concluding in a way that left me pleased I have invested my time and energy in it, I was left feeling it had been cut short because the writer (or director) had simply run out of steam. On the plus side the acting, especially of those playing the two leading characters, was first class.
Don’t listen to them. This is one really good thriller!
DO NOT MISS!

Evidence of Blood (1998)

From Amazon Prime:

An award winning author of stories of real crimes returns to his hometown where he becomes involved in a 40 year old case of a murdered teenager.
From Amazon Prime you can stream this 1 hour 49 minute complete film.
In 22 years film making has changed a great deal.  You know you are watching older film techniques when the tool available to distinguish between the film’s present and past is a change in the hue of the picture.  Another clue is that David Strathairn (who plays the author Jackson Kinley) was a young 49 years of age (and is now 78 years old).  Mary McDonnell  (who plays Dora Overton)  played Ruby Goldfarb  in Fargo.
Because his friend Ray dies, Kinley goes back to his home town, driven by a capital punishment case that never felt correct.  Little by little his dogged persistence finally discovers the truth. Along the way he brushes up against an elaborate town wide cover-up and riles up alot of the townsfolk.  Also he falls in love with Dora.
Note that Jackson does his work “by hand” so to speak. He doesn’t have modern tools such as DNA forensics. Dora doesn’t even have a telephone.  All stored data is on paper.  Was 1998 really that long ago?
Watching a vintage film in which Jackson slowly assembles the puzzle pieces  is not a waste of time.   And there is no violence.

Toy Boy (2019)

From Netflix:

A stripper sets out to prove his innocence for a crime he didn’t commit and was unjustly incarcerated for seven years earlier.

From Netflix you can stream the 13 episodes (each episode about 70 minutes) of this Spanish telenovela.  Many spoken languages and caption languages are available.

Spanish telenovelas inhabit a world of their own.  Chief among their attributes are “corny”, “amateurish”,  and “sometimes really stupid.” So why on earth did I watch this unintentionally laughable marathon? Netflix seemed to promote this series, so I started. Injustice and villains always get me going.  Because I have to see justice done I just keep plodding along to the end.

Before you waste your time let me list some of the “features” of this charmer:

  •  You might enjoy listening to the original Spanish (as in Spain, not Latin America) sound track. You might want Spanish captions. At the very least it could possibly be a learning experience although there are better options.
  •  Each tension point is almost immediately resolved so you don’t have to get all worked up.  Sometimes those immediate solutions seem far fetched or just too convenient.
  • Recall that telenovelas for all their involvement with sex are really very chaste.   Certainly the endless number of male stripper dance sequences are as innocent as they are boring.
  •  Warning: From the very last scene, it is obvious that there will probably be another season or even 100 more seasons. Possibilities are endless.

You can do much better, but in a certain sense the whole production is a hoot!

Hidden (2011)

From Acorn TV:

When a mysterious lawyer (Thekla Reuten, In Bruges) asks solicitor Harry Venn (Philip Glenister, Life on Mars, The Level) to find a missing alibi witness for her client, he’s forced to delve back into his murky past and uncover a far-reaching conspiracy in this “intelligent, pacy TV thriller” (The Telegraph) that also stars David Suchet (Poirot) and Richard Dormer (Fortitude, Game of Thrones).

From Acorn TV (all British, $7.99 per month) you can stream the 4 episodes of this British political conspiracy thriller. Each episode lasts a bit less than an hour.

Most political thrillers (as well as detective series) have the same list of categories such as family conflict, personal betrayal, action film, intrigue, conspiracy, corruption, assassination, and so forth. Of course the difference from one series to the next depends on writing, acting, details, the story itself. For this series I might add “nail biter”.  Each episode offers a suspenseful sub-story with its own conclusion all leading up to a riveting and surprising conclusion. Underlying the entire story is Harry Venn wondering who killed his older brother which ties together all the episodes.

You may see the actors in IMDB. When it comes to villains Anna Chancellor as Elspeth and Matthew Marsh as Morpeth are chillingly perfect. And what a surprise to see David Suchet as someone other than Poirot.

Are there flaws?  Yes, most notably that some of the narrow escapes are a bit too convenient.  But the plot turn at each such mini-conclusion is an intriguing surprise.  Even the very ending, which is not suspenseful,  is somewhat unexpected.

Riveting,  suspenseful, good guys and bad guys: what’s not to like? Give this one a DO NOT MISS!

The New Nurses (2018)

From IMDB:

Love, sickness, health and exam anxiety at a Danish hospital in the 50s. Erik (Morten Hee Andersen) and Anna (Molly Blixt Egelind) are among the first to be accepted into a nursing school with men and women being trained together. Due to a lack of trained nurses, the danish government decides, on a trial basis, that it is acceptable for a man to work as a nurse. It is not easy for the men to be accepted as nurses in an working environment with old-fashioned hierarchies and strict disciplinary work ethics.

From MHz Choice you can stream 2 seasons of this Danish TV series. Each season contains 6 episodes. Each episode lasts about 40 minutes. Danish with English subtitles.

In case you were wondering what the Danish name for this series is, the title is Sygeplejeskolen. Now, don’t you feel better for knowing?

In all seriousness, this is a fine soap opera series involving lots of appealing fresh-faced young women and men nurse-trainees, doctors, and teachers. Needless to say, there are lots of romances, love affairs, unwanted pregnancies, and patient dramas.

One example of a romance should suffice: One female nurse-trainee (let’s call her Anna) falls in love with a male trainee (call him Eric). But that young man has two problems: He finds the text book portion very difficult and he has such a big heart that he gets himself in trouble helping patients sometimes by bending rules. As a result he has to leave the program and then moves to England to study. He leaves at the end of season 1. During season 2 Anna pines for Eric but meets and is attracted to another fellow (Jake?) who is not a part of the hospital but knew Anna from their school days. Anna never gets mail from Eric. Jake proposes to Anna. In the last episode of season 2 Anna gets a packet of letters from Eric. These letters had somehow been misplaced by the postal service. In the last few seconds of the season Anna is about to open the all important letter from Eric, but she does not read the letter in season 2. Talk about a cliff hanger! More seasons will follow.

If you like innocent, non-violent romantic soap operas, this series is for you.

Lazy Eye (2016)

From IMBD:

When Dean, a graphic designer in Los Angeles, notices a sudden change in his vision, an ex-love from 15 years earlier contacts him unexpectedly in hopes of rekindling their relationship. When the two meet at a vacation house in the desert near Joshua Tree, secrets are revealed and passions rekindled that threaten to upend both of their lives. Forty-eight hours later, neither will ever be the same.

From Amazon Prime:

Passions reignite & hidden secrets revealed when a graphic designer in Los Angeles reconnects with an ex-lover he hasn’t seen or heard from in 15 years. Over the course of a weekend at a vacation house in the desert, they must determine whether or not they have a future together. Written and directed by Emmy, Gotham, GLAAD and Independent Spirit Award Nominee Tim Kirkman.

From Amazon Prime you can stream this 1 hour 27 minute complete film.

Basically the film uses the talking heads technique. Unless that talking is interesting such films can be dull. But there is something real and intense about the conversation between Dean and Alex. Between the mundane topics, now and then brutal honesty pops up.

So many films offer the same tired cliché: A meets B, they fall in love and have sex, difficulties arise and are solved, happy ending. This film is different but I offer no spoilers.  But the film is a testament to courageous choices.

Not bad.

Joe’s Palace (2009)

From Amazon Prime:

An empty London mansion casts a spell over an innocent young boy in this thought-provoking psychological drama.

From Amazon Prime you can stream this 1 hour 54 minute complete film. Incidentally, I found this film because Amazon suggests films that match films you have already watched, such as  “Dark River” which I discussed in my last review.

For most of this film I felt like a spectator in a “happening” of no particular importance.  Make no mistake, I found the details and characters fascinating. But always the question presented itself: But where is this all going?  Be prepared for a stunning and infuriating conclusion, as in “WOW!”

Venerable and famous British actor Michael Gambon plays perfectly a wealthy, brooding, lonely Elliot Graham. He hires young Joe Dix (played by Danny Lee Wynter) to be the doorman at one of Elliot’s perfectly maintained but uninhabited London residences. To my mind, the character Joe Dix is central to the story and steals the show. He presents a taciturn, uneducated, but principled young man whose mother found him this position. He speaks with a clipped lower class accent.

As a side character Rupert Penry-Jones plays the married womanizer Richard Reece having one of his many affairs with the also married Charlotte played by the beautiful Kelly Reilly.  As a side benefit to their subplot you can watch two “beautiful people” having quite a bit of sex.

DO NOT MISS!

 

 

 

Ozark (2017)

From IMDB:

A financial adviser drags his family from Chicago to the Missouri Ozarks, where he must launder $500 million in five years to appease a drug boss.

From Netflix you can stream two seasons. Each season consists of 10 one-hour episodes. You need to watch both seasons to come to a conclusion of sorts. Conceivably  there could be another season.

Before saying anything more let me warn you that this series is very VIOLENT!

In several places I have read that Donald Trump debases everything and everybody he touches. For a step-by-step detailed textbook showing how evil spreads to engulf even the originally most innocent souls, this series will more than suffice. The process of moral debasement portrays at the same time the “Wages of Sin.” Many involved characters receive harsh retribution, most especially the loss of life, love and respect.

Those of you with strong stomachs may well find these episodes captivating for their attention to detail in the plot, excellent dialog, and superb acting. No wonder the series received 9 Emmy award nominations!  Personally I was as hooked as I was horrified.  Seems I have become very jaded.

Hats off to some remarkable performances:

  •  “Arrested Development” was my first encounter with Jason Bateman who plays Marty Byrde. In both cases Bateman exudes a somewhat-repressed, matter-of-fact, nerdish comportment. Nothing seems to rattle him.  At each shock, after a thoughtful and facially inexpressive pause, during which you can almost hear his brain cells clicking, he manages to smooth talk his way through the crisis. You must wait for almost 20 episodes before you can see his despair.
  •  Laura Linney, who plays Marty’s wife Wendy Byrde constantly flashes the always beautiful smile that launches a thousand crimes.  After a while I finally realized that for the most part Wendy is one of the most evil characters.  Here I am reminded of Hannah Arendt’s phrase “the Banality of Evil”.  One rationalization leads to another.
  •  Julia Garner, who plays Ruth Langmore, turns in a bravo performance as a “white trash” daughter of a convicted criminal. Ruth’s character, while never innocent,  grows to recognize the lowness of her given state in life and does mature to rise above and take responsibility.  Her improvement owes much to the fact that she was born with a very intelligent mind.

Assuming you can get through the first stomach-churners, you may well become as addicted as was I.