No.221 : The Sinner (TV) (2017) Series 1-3

The Sinner at the IMDb

A second trip into the Definitive world of TV now as we look at all three seasons of the American show ‘The Sinner’. Each season deals with a single case and lasts for 8 episodes. This may seem like overkill for a single investigation but the format does lend itself to an exhaustive approach to the crime and the motivations behind it. It won’t be for everyone, especially if you need a lot of action, but fans of the police procedural will lap it up.

Bill Pullman stars as Harry Ambrose a bearded detective working out of a precinct in Dorchester New York. It’s a well heeled community and you get the sense that murders are the exception rather than the norm. Harry has a basket full of issues, with a troubled marriage, that is soon dissolved, and a few kinks of his own including paying fat hookers to beat him up. These edges start to disappear in the later series which are pretty much straight up investigations, with Harry’s quirks largely set to one side.

The three seasons broadcast so far deal with individual crimes although mentions of the previous events do crop up in later investigations. The crimes all involve unlikely murderers and Harry’s, largely self appointed, task is to understand the motivations behind them and whether they can be explained or justified.

The three seasons are named after the main subject with the first being Cora. Cora is a young mother who one day at the beach stabs a man to death with a fruit knife. It looks like an open and shut case and she pleads guilty, but Harry knows he has 8 episodes to fill, and starts to dig deeper. As he slowly unravels details of the case we learn of a larger conspiracy and a horrific back-story that begins to explain her actions.

In the second season a young boy poisons his two carers, with tea made from a deadly root. Again it’s an open and shut case, but why did he do it and what has the mysterious cult, in which he was raised, got to do with it all?

In the last season to date, a young teacher survives a car crash in which his friend dies. An examination of the timeline shows that the friend could have been saved,. Why was he allowed to die and what about these other murders that are cropping up?

For me the first two seasons were great with the third only being so-so. I liked the fresh approach to detective work, although it beggared belief that Harry would be given free reign to pick apart an open and shut case whilst, presumably, loads of other murders were going unsolved, The first series was the most satisfying in terms of revelations and detective work. Harry has no special powers apart from asking the right questions and reading people. At first his kinky life is a major factor in his character but that’s rightly sidelined as the series progresses. I know every cop show needs an angle but I don’t need to see my leading man get his face sat on, on a regular basis.

The second series involving the cult was good too and I liked how the conspiracy was all over the town with various worthies getting drawn in. The creepy kid was excellent as was Carrie Coon, who you’ll know off Season 3 of ‘Fargo’. It was also good to see ‘Mr Dresden’ off those old Orange Cinema ads as ‘The Beacon’.

The third season was still enjoyable but it stretched things a bit far in terms of the indulgences allowed to Harry and by him to his suspect. When he agreed to be buried in a grave to win his suspect’s trust you could almost hear the ‘whoosh’ as the shark was jumped.

Bill Pullman is likeable in the lead, as the sharp but laid back detective. He is given too much latitude in his investigations to be believable, but you give it a pass as it’s enjoyable to see him dismantle an unbreakable case.

At the start I thought there was going to e a supernatural element to the series but in the end it is down to nothing more than peoples’ minds and their motivation, which is ultimately more satisfying than a lot of paranormal gubbins.

The series has been renewed for a fourth season and I’d certainly recommend that you get on board before that comes out. All series can be found on Netflix.

THE Tag Line : Sinner’s a Winner 74%

No.147 : The Key (1983)

The Key at the IMDb

Frank Finlay, best known for playing the annoying Irish priest in ‘The Wild Geese’, stars in this 1983 film directed by smut auteur Tinto Brass.

It is listed in some places as pornography but if that’s your thing don’t bother - ‘The Benny Hill Show’  is far racier.

We open at a  New Year’s party for 1940 in Venice. The fascists are on the rise, and so no slow viewers fail to follow this plot point, the party is attended by Mussolini himself. Frank is more interested in the booze however, and playing grab ass with his shapely, but slightly frigid, wife. She doesn’t like his public displays of affection and insists on being taken home. She’s not so shy however when she is caught short and raises the level of the canals with a street piss that would make a race horse blush.

Frank is quite excited by this and gets all affectionate when they get home. An efficient lover, Frank is five pumps and done. Elsewhere Frank’s daughter is joining the Fascists and her fiancé  is having designs on Franks wife, a situation that turns Frank on, and makes him jealous at the same time.

Too shy to talk of such matters Frank starts to write a diary about all his seedy thoughts and leaves the key to his desk lying about so the wife can have a look. Of course she does and soon she is losing her inhibitions as she acts out Filthy Frank’s fantasies. Frank also gets hold of the world’s first Instamatic camera and, after drugging his wife, he gets lots of candid shots of her for his diary. The beast.

The wife is horrified by this invasion but also happy that he’s using the photographic skills of her daughter’s fiancé to develop the photos - that instant camera film was seemingly too expensive for Frank. The wife starts to take control and writes her own diary which Frank laps up, amongst other things.

All the excitement is causing Frank medical issues and his doctor says he needs to knock off the sex and drinking. Poor Frank he’s a ten a day man - and he likes a drink too! Unfortunately for Frank his wife’s blossoming is almost complete and, when she starts ordering him to wear her underwear we know things aren’t going to end well for  him. Probably took the mortician half an hour to get the smile off his face though!

This was a strange film and you have to wonder what market it is designed for. Clearly the marketing is for those who like their erotica but it’s really tame stuff. I also doubt that those who want to watch a nuanced film about a woman’s sexual awaking set against the backdrop of war aren’t going to be reaching to the top shelf.

The dialogue is half in English and half in Italian so a lot of the time you have no idea what’s going on. You do get helpful narration from Frank but it’s hard to take that filthy bastard seriously - especially when he dons the suspenders.

The setting of Venice is well used and you see a lot of  the city and people pissing on it. There are no familiar faces in the cast apart from Frank and it’s hard to tell if anyone is any good given they are all horrendously dubbed.

It may be the version on Amazon Prime is heavily cut but if it saved me half an hour of my life I’m grateful to them - plenty of other places to find your smut without having to listen to earnest dialogue about feelings. So I’ve heard.

Overall it was a worthless piece of whimsy trying to be something meaningful and failing badly. That said, it rumbled along fine with a few unintentional laughs to keep you entertained.

THE Tag Line : Frank Finlay Does Rocky Horror 53%

No.89 : The Kentuckian (1955)

The Kentuckian at the IMDb

Burt Lancaster starred and directed this 1955 undemanding but overlong western.

He plays Big Eli, a frontiersman who feels civilisation has encroached too much onto his world and takes his son off on a quest to make a life in Texas where land is measured by your eye, not a rope and chain. Sadly this is easier said than done as low cost airlines are still some time away. Burt has saved up $215 to pay his passage and to secure some land. His boy is at the precocious age of being most annoying and Burt tells him he won’t be a man until he can blow a horn - don’t ask.

The pair soon encounter some small minded townsfolk who dislike Burt’s penchant for dog fighting. They slam him in the jail and he has to rely on a nice local lass for vitals. The girl, Hannah, is a kind of slave who is in servitude to her boss, who happens to be an abusive dick. She manages to free Burt, but his faithful dog leads the baddies to their campfire. Burt agrees to spend his whole bankroll on freeing the woman but even then still it seems cheap!

Burt arrives at his brother in law’s home and not surprisingly his hosts aren’t too impressed with his new purchase. The brother in law dislikes Burt’s lifestyle and presumably the coonskin cap he’s wearing, that no doubt stinks to high heaven. He tries to talk Burt out of his Texan dream and sets him up in a fancy suit and tries to teach him his tobacco selling business.

Burt however is more keen on Sophie, the local school teacher who is slightly hotter than Hannah but does come with the baggage of a crippled mother whom we only hear from up the stairs; and believe me she sounds a total nightmare. The boy however prefers Hannah and soon his own life is getting tougher as Dad’s mess ups cause him no end of high school hassles. Burt you see, has made a tit of himself as a freshwater pearl he found and sent to the President turns out to be worthless and send the whole town into fits of giggles.

Rather than lose face Burt decides to restore his bankroll and in an almost slapstick scene hustles some river boat gamblers by pretending to be a sucker with a large bag marked ‘$’. With his money now restored Burt has the choice of the ladies and of a life as a tobacco baron or as a Texan rancher. But wait! Walter Matthau and his handy whip may still have a part to play as will the boy’s horn.

This was an OK western but at approaching two hours it didn’t have enough meat on the bones to sustain the journey. Burt is a Daniel Boone type character rallying against the advancements society has made while he’s been rolling about in the dirt. His sage wisdom grated and his annoying son did nothing to help the viewer’s affections towards the pair. The women were mere chattels that Burt could pick and choose while they looked on with pathetic hopefulness. His big choice at the end was based on the burden of the mother in law more than the affection he felt for either woman, which makes him a stand up dude.

I did enjoy some aspects especially Walter Matthau’s character who was a sadistic bastard who was handy with the whip and the riverboat scene was good fun although totally out of kilter with the rest of the film.

All things considered the film wasn’t a hit but it did have enough elements to suggest a look if there’s nothing else on and your DVD player is broken.

THE Tag Line - Whip It Real Good
53%