Red Riding

JP Liz

Red Riding is a new three-part Yorkshire-based cop drama that starts by travelling back to the early Seventies.
But don’t expect any light-hearted Life On Mars stuff in tonight’s episode, 1974 – or in the following two, for that matter, set in 1980 and 1983.
This is what’s usually described as gritty stuff – brilliantly written and acted, fantastically atmospheric (in a bleak kind of way) and sickeningly violent.
Andrew Garfield plays young local journalist Eddie Dunford, who finds himself reporting on the case of a missing schoolgirl – and then discovering that this sinister crime is just part of a far bigger picture.
The violence comes when he finds out how far the various scumbags will go to prevent the full facts emerging.
Stars include Warren Clarke, David Morrissey and a seriously evil Sean Bean.

Starts tonight at 9pm on Channel 4

Basq

I'm looking forward to this!

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055455597

MattEmulsion

Looking forward to this, sounds like a great piece of tv

fryup

taught it was a bit of a yawnfest to be honest with you:cool:

mike65

I prefer the fantasy version of the 70s having been there once for real so I passed.

ejmaztec

I found it infuriatingly slow going.

I think that they also used the wrong car supplier. Most of the "highly-polished to look like new" cars, dotted around, would have been more predominant in the 50s and early 60s at a push. Yorkshire wasn't that far behind the rest of the UK. Then there was the "P" (1976) reg Jensen, this being registered two years after the year that it was supposedly set. I assume that it was all 1974, perhaps I nodded off and missed a couple of years.

An tSaoi

fryup wrote: »

taught it was a bit of a yawnfest to be honest with you:cool:

ejmaztec wrote: »

I found it infuriatingly slow going.

Very true. I've always maintained that the more they try to plug a show, the worse it really is (as C4 did with Dirty Sexy Money last year). This was no exception to that rule. The trailers used to take up the entire ad break on Channel 4, with those little interviews from the cast saying how special it was and what really drew them to the scripts. I thought that either it's a brilliant set of films that they're rightfully trying to raise the profile of, or they're tedious made-for-TV muck. Sadly the latter was the case. Why the channel decided to put so much time and effort into advertising something so utterly mundane is quite beyond me. Maybe they poured too much money into it, and needed to guarantee good ratings? However many people they managed to trick into watching it, the drop off rate for the next installment will be huge.

It was no better than any garden variety murder mystery drama you'd see on ITV at lunchtime. Quite what was so exceptional about it I fail to see.

MattEmulsion

I stuck with it but found it dragged a bit all right, I believe that things hot up in the next instalment which could make things worth it. I'll be back on Thursday to give it another whizz but will probably end up watching the final episode anyway as it reveals a lot more about the first two eps and ties all the strings together

calex71

only watching the 1st episode now and it is very slow im only half way through it but slow as it is i do like the plot.

Am I the only one who found the sex scenes between the main character and the blondie lady totally out of place and unbelieveable?????

herobear

Havent watched any of the show yet, but im really enjoying the first book(1974 by david peace) of the quartet, that the tv show was adapted from,
only 6 Euro each in HMV.

Kiith

I watched the first part of this last night, and thought it was excellent. Dark and gritty, with some very good performances from the cast. Looking forward to watching the rest of it.

zimovain

The books are much better than the movies!

piby

I'd agree that the first episode is quite slow at times but if you stick with it the trilogy as whole was excellent! If you take them as individual stand-alone episodes I don't think they were outstanding but if you watch all of them and in order the viewing experience is enriched ten-fold. The way everything weaves in and out of each episode and character is impressive. There is so much rubbish television out there at the moment it's nice to see something where a little thought has gone into the plot and by extension the characters. It's also nice to this particular format (three by two hour episodes) when these days everyhting is a movie or a series of 20+ one hour episodes.

Didn't realise it was based on a book(s) so will definately be checking it out.

zimovain

piby wrote: »

Didn't realise it was based on a book(s) so will definately be checking it out.

It's based on four novels by David Peace.

fontanalis

I only saw the first film and read all four of the books. My opinion on the film is the same as the book, very patchy with soem great bits. They chopepd a good bit out of the book and amalgamted some characters. The books get better as they go along and the overall story is quite complicated, i don't know how they could drop the second book.
Zimovian; have you read the books and if so did you get the whole plot?

Kiith

I've still only seen the 1st part, but i thought it was great. That may have something to do with Rebecca Hall though

Woot! 5000 posts! :P

JP Liz V1

More4 are showing this again

wil

Fans of Misfits might spot Robert Sheehan playing a very different small role as BJ in this. I dont think he has any lines other than he narrates over his character for the closing scenes in a Yorkshire accent.
A bit torrid and heavy going but well acted and some very unpleasant characters definitely not working for the Yorkshire tourist board.

zimovain

Read the four novels people!

ricero

gritty bafta

Rjd2

Its on Channel 4's Youtube section as well

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_filter=1&search_query=red+riding&search_duration=long&search_type=videos&suggested_categories=24,10,23,1&uni=3

Dots1982

So this was just ****e yeah? I watched 30 mins of the first episode and it was poor. The comments here suggest it was ****e.