Post by Capo on Jul 13, 2009 22:45:38 GMT
The third (I hadn't seen the previous two), six-part season started tonight on BBC. Written by Cracker creator Jimmy McGovern.
Just sat through the first episode. I don't know why.
Synopsis, as given on the BBC site: "Drama series following the individual stories of the residents of an ordinary street."
Now then, this is where the trouble starts. From the very start, the work strives for the "ordinary", for the mundane, and from that it seemingly wishes to expose (invest) a hidden drama. It's not only superficial, but hilariously implausible.
Just to skip through some of the gaping plot contrivances... Bob Hoskins and wife run a great community boozer, which has a football team. Football team is funded by a bar regular, who is father to one of the team's players and happens also to be the local gangster (a drugs dealer, we are told). When Hoskins catches the son smoking in the toilets, he bars him, just as he has barred another of the players. Gangster Dad goes straight up to the bar (this all in the opening sequence) and orders two drinks, one for him and one for his son. Rules are rules, Hoskins says: he can't serve the son because he's barred. Gangster Dad tells Hoskins he's coming in tomorrow, son in tow, and if they aren't served two drinks, Hoskins is going to get his head caved in. (Oh dear.)
This is all a bit silly but quite watchable so far. But the narrative then unfolds from this point of departure so that the central dilemma becomes whether or not Hoskins (sorry, I really can't remember the character's name) is going to lose face and serve the gangster, or treat everyone fairly and stand up against him. Seriously, that's the gist: a montage has him trying to acquire the support of the football team (whose manager refuses to help on the grounds that they're funded by Gangster Dad), of friends, of regulars.
Hoskins is cast against type, I suppose, and tries to hold his own as a respectable father of three, respectable husband and recovering alcoholic. As the local hood, Liam Cunningham (a fine actor) is very miscast, lacking the physicality and aggression to have any real threatening presence. That the film hinges on this central conflict means that the casting alone becomes problematic. But it's the script that is so fatally silly.
Technicalities aside, this is a morally bankrupt tale. In a final twist, Hoskins returns from being beaten to a pulp to expose the gangster's shortcomings as a father in front of all the regulars. These are the same regulars who couldn't stand up in solidarity against the gangster; Hoskins refuses them any more drinks, and tells them to leave the pub. In the final final twist, the narrative is resolved by the gangster's wife and son getting into a taxi and seemingly leaving him for good. It's an upshot steeped in feel-good irrationality, and fails to address any wider implications.
Psychologically, none of it rings true either. The practical and moral dilemmas around which the plot grinds aren't given enough thought, and seem to be introduced only so that the story exists in the first place. Why doesn't Hoskins go to the police, for instance? Why doesn't he, if things are that bad, simply lose face? Why is this gangster even threatening to shatter a friendship that seemingly has some sort of history (the opening scene is a friendly phone conversation between the two)? Why does the gangster seemingly act alone? These are all questions never even entertained, because they're seemingly deemed irrelevant to the narrative's focus and drive.
But no: the whole narrative itself is frivolous. The action revolves around a working-class street (an ordinary working-class street!) on which roadworks are taking place. Between scene transitions the camera keeps returning to these roadworks, as if to imply some sort of psychological tension, or even, more tenuously, a social backdrop that may be the clue to the characters' dilemmas.
It fails, it's silly. That the whole escapade stems from a youth smoking in the toilets might suggest a nod towards a post-smoking ban Britain, but it's a question completely reduced by the fact that the youth's reason for doing so is that it was too cold to go outside (!). It may have been a more interesting script had it concentrated on the plight of small-time bar managers working in the current socio-economic pressures. And it might have been at least a bit more plausible had the youth been smoking weed and not a plain cigarette.
But it's another example of vacuous British TV drama. Sigh.
Just sat through the first episode. I don't know why.
Synopsis, as given on the BBC site: "Drama series following the individual stories of the residents of an ordinary street."
Now then, this is where the trouble starts. From the very start, the work strives for the "ordinary", for the mundane, and from that it seemingly wishes to expose (invest) a hidden drama. It's not only superficial, but hilariously implausible.
Just to skip through some of the gaping plot contrivances... Bob Hoskins and wife run a great community boozer, which has a football team. Football team is funded by a bar regular, who is father to one of the team's players and happens also to be the local gangster (a drugs dealer, we are told). When Hoskins catches the son smoking in the toilets, he bars him, just as he has barred another of the players. Gangster Dad goes straight up to the bar (this all in the opening sequence) and orders two drinks, one for him and one for his son. Rules are rules, Hoskins says: he can't serve the son because he's barred. Gangster Dad tells Hoskins he's coming in tomorrow, son in tow, and if they aren't served two drinks, Hoskins is going to get his head caved in. (Oh dear.)
This is all a bit silly but quite watchable so far. But the narrative then unfolds from this point of departure so that the central dilemma becomes whether or not Hoskins (sorry, I really can't remember the character's name) is going to lose face and serve the gangster, or treat everyone fairly and stand up against him. Seriously, that's the gist: a montage has him trying to acquire the support of the football team (whose manager refuses to help on the grounds that they're funded by Gangster Dad), of friends, of regulars.
Hoskins is cast against type, I suppose, and tries to hold his own as a respectable father of three, respectable husband and recovering alcoholic. As the local hood, Liam Cunningham (a fine actor) is very miscast, lacking the physicality and aggression to have any real threatening presence. That the film hinges on this central conflict means that the casting alone becomes problematic. But it's the script that is so fatally silly.
Technicalities aside, this is a morally bankrupt tale. In a final twist, Hoskins returns from being beaten to a pulp to expose the gangster's shortcomings as a father in front of all the regulars. These are the same regulars who couldn't stand up in solidarity against the gangster; Hoskins refuses them any more drinks, and tells them to leave the pub. In the final final twist, the narrative is resolved by the gangster's wife and son getting into a taxi and seemingly leaving him for good. It's an upshot steeped in feel-good irrationality, and fails to address any wider implications.
Psychologically, none of it rings true either. The practical and moral dilemmas around which the plot grinds aren't given enough thought, and seem to be introduced only so that the story exists in the first place. Why doesn't Hoskins go to the police, for instance? Why doesn't he, if things are that bad, simply lose face? Why is this gangster even threatening to shatter a friendship that seemingly has some sort of history (the opening scene is a friendly phone conversation between the two)? Why does the gangster seemingly act alone? These are all questions never even entertained, because they're seemingly deemed irrelevant to the narrative's focus and drive.
But no: the whole narrative itself is frivolous. The action revolves around a working-class street (an ordinary working-class street!) on which roadworks are taking place. Between scene transitions the camera keeps returning to these roadworks, as if to imply some sort of psychological tension, or even, more tenuously, a social backdrop that may be the clue to the characters' dilemmas.
It fails, it's silly. That the whole escapade stems from a youth smoking in the toilets might suggest a nod towards a post-smoking ban Britain, but it's a question completely reduced by the fact that the youth's reason for doing so is that it was too cold to go outside (!). It may have been a more interesting script had it concentrated on the plight of small-time bar managers working in the current socio-economic pressures. And it might have been at least a bit more plausible had the youth been smoking weed and not a plain cigarette.
But it's another example of vacuous British TV drama. Sigh.