Category Archives: Weapons Dealer

2015, Acorn TV, Binge worthy, Blackmail, Bloody scenes, Boating, British Mystery Series, Divorce, DO NOT MISS, Extramarital Affair, Failing Marriage, Family Conflict, Forensics, Frame someone for a crime, Gangs, Mother-daughter relations, Mother-son relations, Murder, Murder Investigation, Personal Betrayal, Police Corruption, Police cover-up, Police Culture, Police Investigation, Sex Scenes, Suspense, Undercover police work, Weapons Dealer, Yorkshire Accents

Black Work (2015)

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From Acorn TV:

This powerful crime thriller written by Matt Charman (Bridge of Spies) dives into the murky depths of undercover police work and tells the story of a woman willing to risk everything to protect her family. Sheridan Smith (Jonathan Creek, Accused) delivers a powerhouse performance as Jo Gillespie, a police constable who embarks on a dangerous investigation of her husband’s death.

From Acorn TV you can stream the 3 episodes of this series. Each episode lasts about 45 minutes.

Because this engrossing procedural, which takes place in Leeds, involves so many facets, for a while I could not imagine the story ending in a mere 3 episodes. Have no fear, the conclusion is quite satisfying.

You can hear various accents include the Scottish accent of Douglas Henshall and the Yorkshire accent of others, especially the character Zoe Nash.

Familiar faces abound:

  •     Matthew McNulty, who plays Jack, was Steve Campbell in the wonderful Deadwater Fell,  which is also found on Acorn TV.
  •    Geraldine James, who plays CC Carolyn Jarecki,  was 65 years old in the filming. Her resumé is enormous.
  •   Douglas Henshall, who plays DCS Hepburn,  was DI Jimmy Pere in Shetland.  He appears in many familiar series.
  •   Was there ever a more familiar veteran than Phil Davis ( who plays Tom Piper) ? He has played in everything (slight exaggeration but just take a glance at his IMDB entry).

For most of the 3 episodes I spent much time trying to figure out who is corrupt. There are a lot of name to remember, but names are used a lot. And some of those names are bad guys, so stay alert.

So well done that I feel obliged to say DO NOT MISS!

2007, Abduction, Abuse of Women, Accidental Death, Action Film, Blackmail, Bloody scenes, Cold Cases, Contract Killing, Cooking, Corruption, Could Be Hard To Watch, Crime, DNA, Drug Dealers, Extramarital Affair, Father-daughter relations, Financial malfeasance, Forensics, Gangs, Gay theme, Happy Family Gatherings, Jealousy, jiu-jitsu, Kidnapping, MHz Choice, Mother-daughter relations, Murder, Murder Investigation, Pedophilia, Physical child abuse, Police Corruption, Prostitutes, Rape, Revenge, Sadism, Suspense, Swedish, Swedish crime series, Swedish Detective, Thriller, Torture, Violent, Weapons Dealer, Wife Beating

Irene Huss (2007)

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From MHz Choice:

From the best-selling crime fiction of Helene Tursten, Irene Huss is a ju-jitsu champion, a mother, and a detective inspector. Her husband, Krister, is a successful chef and luckily for Irene, he gladly shoulders a fair share of the household tasks. In her work with the Violent Crimes Unit in Gothenburg, Irene encounters criminal minds of all stripes: from drug dealers to serial killers to psychotic young girls. Each new case challenges her assumptions about herself and others.

From MHz Choice (only foreign films with subtitles) you can stream 2 seasons of this Swedish crime series. Each season offers 6 episodes where each episode lasts approximately 1.5 hours.

As is common in so many detective series, the main police investigator is constantly interrupted when she is with her family of devoted husband Krister  and two daughters.  Running through all the episodes is the theme of her family life and her husband’s career as a chef. Often, in sometimes threatening ways, the husband and daughters become involved in Irene’s investigations. At times the lives of all four family members are in danger.

Repeatedly throughout the series we see Irene engaged in jiu-jitsu training which goes hand-in-hand with her many physical combats with criminals.  Irene is portrayed as somewhat of a superwoman who is always ready to chase on foot after a villain even if she should be suffering from some injury. Just suspend disbelief and enjoy the action sequences.

Expect a lot of nasty crime and violence. Expect ugly and explicit details of brutality, including rape and torture. This is not a series for the faint of heart.

On the positive side it is a pleasure to watch Irene’s happy family together. Also each story is so compelling and suspenseful that I could not stop watching each episode.

2017, Abduction, Action Film, Action Hero, Black Ops, Bloody scenes, Brother-Sister relations, Cancer theme, Car Chase, Chase film, CIA, Computer geeks, Conspiracy, Corny at times, Corruption, Ends in Cliff Hanger, FBI, Frenetic, Gangs, Invincible Hero, Israeli Spies, Kidnapping, Large-scale gang activity, Mayhem, Mixed Martial Arts, Murder by poison, Netflix Streaming, Police Corruption, Revenge, Spy Theme, Suspense, Terminal Disease, Torture, Violent, Weapons Dealer

Taken (2017)

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From IMDB:

As former CIA agent Bryan Mills deals with a personal tragedy that shakes his world, he fights to overcome the incident and exact revenge.

From Netflix you can stream the 10 episodes of season 1 only. Each episode lasts about 45 minutes.

Whereas the continuing story line is Bryan’s continuing battle against Carlos Mejia, the Mexican criminal that killed Bryan’s sister, each episode also tells an episode-contained story with a satisfying ending. WARNING: Unfortunately the tenth episode is a cliff hanger that urgently wants to lead into the next, so far unavailable, season.

Bryan Mills, whose character overpowers the entire set of episodes, is played by Clive Standen. If you watched the amazing series Vikings (2013-2018), you will recognize Bryan as the character Rollo who was the brother of Ragnar. Recall that Rollo marries into French nobility.

You have seen these plots and action sequences before.  So why watch another version?  For me the attractions were: the intensity of each episode, the well-done action sequences, the fairly good acting, and seeing the good guys vanquish the bad guys.

Once again, our hero Bryan is a superman who never misses a shot, leaps over lots of tall things, never loses in hand-to-hand combat, has (to quote a woman Israeli spy) “a kind face”, is a bit of a ham,  and is a hit with the ladies.

Despite hints of mediocrity, I had lots of fun watching the violence. Maybe I should join the NRA!

2012, Acceptable Trash, Action Film, Action Hero, B-movie, Bad Acting, Bloody scenes, Car Chase, CIA, Contract Killing, Corny at times, Father-daughter relations, Greed, Improbable details, Mediocre, Suspense, Thriller, Violent, Weapons Dealer

Erased (2012)

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From IMDB:

An ex-CIA agent and his estranged daughter are forced on the run when his employers erase all records of his existence, and mark them both for termination as part of a wide-reaching international conspiracy.

From Netflix you can stream this 1 hour 40 minutes single film (not a series).

Formulaic (CIA killers, CIA agents moving to the dark side, invincible ex-CIA agent hero and his estranged but  brave and clever daughter, amoral weapons-dealing corporation) film with lots of action, chasing, and sometimes really bad and corny acting.

You have seen it all before, but it just fun seeing the bad guys get what is coming to them.

2014, Action Film, Bloody scenes, Conspiracy, Contract Killing, Corruption, Crude Talk, Dark, Ends in Cliff Hanger, Ethical struggles, Extramarital Affair, Forensics, Gloomy, Grungy, Gun Trafficking, MHz Choice, Military Corruption, Murder, Murder Investigation, Personal Betrayal, Police Corruption, Polish, Polish Border Guards, Serial Killer, Suspense, Thriller, TV Series, Upsetting ending, Violent, Weapons Dealer

Wataha (2014)

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From IMDB:

After bombing attack, which killed his friends from the Border Guard, Captain Wiktor Rebrow trying to unravel the mystery and figure out what happened and who is behind it all.

From MHz Choice:

A tense Polish thriller about an elite border unit specializing in human trafficking cases. After a bomb attack decimates his team, the lone survivor sets out to bring the perpetrators to justice.

From MHz Choice you can stream the only Polish TV series offered. Only Season 1 is available with its 6 episodes, each about 45 minutes. “Wataha” according to the subtitles means “The Pack” even though IMDB calls it “The Border.”

UNFORTUNATELY:  Season 1 resolves neither the mystery nor the injustices. IMDB describes the episodes of Season 2 and even those episodes do not end the story. Even though the series is very well done, you might want to wait until someday you can see the story to its conclusion.

Along the border between Poland and the Ukraine there is human trafficking and that is exclusively where the action takes place. But the story is really about the border guard Wiktor Rebrow who is framed for several murders and the DA Iga Dobosz who pursues Rebrow relentlessly but finally realizes Rebrow was set up just as Rebrow escapes from the police and flees toward the Ukraine at the unsatisfactory end of Season 1.

“Bleak”, “Grungy”,  “Ugly” and “Depressing” are a few words that describe the Polish territory and its inhabitants. If this presentation is representative of Poland,  you can forget about ever visiting Poland.

Isn’t it too bad that the episodes are so exciting when there will be no satisfactory conclusion in the foreseeable future?

2016, Abduction, Abuse of Women, Alcoholism, Amazon Prime, Based on a Book, Bloody scenes, British, Computer geeks, Conspiracy, Contract Killing, Corruption, Could Be Hard To Watch, Cynical, DO NOT MISS, Drug Dealers, Drugs, Gambling, Greed, Grim, Illegitimate Child, International thriler, Love Story, Marital Infidelity, Mercenaries, MI-6, Military, Murder, Nudity, Revenge, Sex Scenes, Sociopath, Swedish crime series, Thriller, Torture, Unmarried mother, Violent, Weapons Dealer

The Night Manager (2016)

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From IMDB:

The night manager of a Cairo hotel is recruited to infiltrate an arms dealer’s inner circle.

From Amazon Prime you can stream this one season, six episode British TV series based on the 1993 novel of the same name by John le Carré.

Easily one of the most suspenseful and engaging undercover TV series I have ever watched, this series grabbed my attention and pushed me into  binge-watching.  Wikipedia offers this synopsis:

Luxury hotel night manager and former British soldier Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) is recruited by Angela Burr (Olivia Colman), an intelligence operative. He is tasked to navigate Whitehall and Washington, D.C. where there is an alliance between the intelligence community and the secret arms trade. He must infiltrate the inner circle of arms dealer Richard Onslow Roper (Hugh Laurie), Roper’s girlfriend Jed (Elizabeth Debicki), and associate Corkoran (Tom Hollander).

Angela Burr has spent decades trying to bring down Richard Roper. Note from the synopsis above that she must simultaneously fight several corrupt members of the British intelligence community who profit from the weapons sales. Roper, played to chilling perfection by Hugh Laurie, is a very clever, ruthless and amoral weapons dealer who is permanently attached emotionally to absolutely no one. He will kill anyone who interferes with his cynical drive to enrich himself by selling illegally obtained weapons of war (napalm, sarin,  rocket launchers, heat seeking missiles, you name it) to whomever is willing to pay his price. He surrounds himself with a coterie of loyal, equally brutal henchmen.  By showing displays of weapons in action and relating past outrages (such as disfiguring children taking part in a sports outing by dropping chemical weapons) the story tries to emphasize the inhumane horror of Roper’s crimes. Roper is more than likely a sociopath.

What is equally chilling is the unemotional complacency of the corrupt intelligence officers who either don’t even attempt to rationalize their behavior or offer some bland excuse. As a result, the efforts of the other officers, i.e. those who have consciences, take on the character of a sacred mission that could easily fail.

What adds to the suspense is the complication that the night manager Jonathan Pine (played by Tom Hiddleston) falls in love with Roper’s girl friend Jed (played by Elizabeth Debicki).  However this attraction is no side piece, but an essential part of the plot.

You may recognize some of the actors from older productions. As far as I am concerned I especially noticed:

  • Alistair Petrie (Sandy Langbourne) was George Forsyte in “The Forsyte Saga”. His resume is very long.
  • Tom Hollander (Lance “Corky” Corkoran) first came to my notice as the famous British spy Guy Burgess in “Cambridge Spies”.
  • David Harewood (the American Joel Steadman) was Francis Warrender in “MI-5” and David Estes in “Homeland”.
  • Olivia  Colman (Angela Burr) was D.S. Ellie Miller in “Broadchurch”.

Make no mistake, this series is violent and suspenseful enough that you might have trouble watching it. Of course that is why I felt compelled to binge-watch. Every episode seemed to end with a nerve wracking cliff hanger.

If you can stand the tension, DO NOT MISS!