Reviews

***SPOILERSI***

Have just binge-watched the first series and am still pondering how I feel about it.

Something kept bugging me all the way through: why is this kind of horror show considered to be entertainment? It's a nightmare from start to finish with no joy anywhere. I kept thinking it must let up somewhere, there must be some hope/redemption/relief somewhere, there must be a payoff for sitting through eight solid hours of grief, and then there isn't.

I am sorry I watched it, and recommend you don't, unless you enjoy misery, trauma, and the worst of humanity in your nightly viewing. I am well aware of man's inhumanity to man (including precious children), I don't need to see it under the guise of "entertainment". No. Entertaining it is not, traumatising it is.

It was far too long. Could have easily and much better told this story, if it needed to be told at all, in 4 or 5 episodes. How much time needs to be spent watching people in cars getting from Point A to Point B? We know what a car looks like moving down a country road. How many pauses before someone replies, opens a door, reads a message, turns to look at someone speaking to them in the room? How many times did I hit the "move 10 seconds ahead" button? Countless times. How many times did I mutter "Just get on with it!"?

And red herrings? OMG! How much time was wasted on, as it turned out, completely unnecessary side stories that were sickening but ended up having nothing to do with Ollie's disappearance. The only redeeming purpose for the whole Ian Garrett (Ken Stott) scenario was to make sure viewers are aware of the horrors that tragically befall children abducted by paedophiles. I am quite sure, sadly, that most people are aware of this, even if they'd rather not be.

James Nesbitt's Tony Hughes was one unlikable protagonist, self-centred, rude, violent, and thoroughly unpleasant. Yes, slack can be cut for someone who's just lost his child, but he seemed to expect the whole world to revolve around him and his search and he was a nasty piece of work when things didn't go the way he thought they should.

Frances O'Connor as Emily Hughes, not much there to like, either. Insipid, meek and boring. However, who knows how I'd behave under similar circumstances. I'd cut out the middle and go straight to insanity, I am sure.

Several languages spoken with no subtitles. Did they assume viewers are fluent in English, French, Romanian, Russian and who knows what else?

Tcheky Karyo's Julien Baptiste was wonderful. Relentless in seeing a job through, even after retirement. I really enjoyed seeing him and his character throughout.

The constant time jumps were jarring. So frequent, I had to follow the hair styles (Emily Hughes and Julien Baptiste mainly) to keep track. Emily having longer darker hair and Julien with a beard and more hair in the later period were handy clues to what year we were in.

My overall impression is that the acting was good. I would not want to be on the receiving end of James Nesbitt's fierce glare. If he started foaming at the mouth I wouldn't have been surprised. Nasty, but appropriate for the part.

The ending felt tacked on. Like they decided last minute that something more was needed. But it still left the question of what happened to Ollie unresolved. After sitting through 8 hours of all that I was hoping for a satisfying conclusion. I choose to believe the boy in Russia was Ollie. But we'll never know for sure. And that's not okay.

I guess it was all well done. But, again, who needs eight hours of hideous despair? Not me, thanks.

Three completely unlikable dimwits in a convoluted story that makes no sense and fittingly goes up in smoke. Why do they bother making nonsense like this? Am I supposed to care about these selfish, stupid fools? Give them two choices: they'll make the dumbest most unrealistic one.

Half the time I couldn't figure out who they were talking about or why they were doing what they were doing. Do any of these people work for a living? They seem to have all the time in the world to sit around drinking copious amounts of tea, but only the brother is shown to have an actual job, a restaurant he owns and manages to run with sporadic visits to the place. No wonder it's going down the tubes. None of the others, including one sister's husband, appears to go to work. I guess they were all just waiting for Daddy to drop dead so they could collect a fat inheritance. Big mistake!

On top of how dopey it all was, there was endless television mumbling so I had to rewind continuously to try to make out what was being said, and even then it didn't make much sense.

I guess I'm the fool because I was actually eager to see this, so the joke's on me. Big fat waste of time.

***SPOILERS***

Missing Kenley becomes a bit of a shaggy-dog story in that it rambles on and on, full of speculation and rumour that ultimately go nowhere. All the "maybe's" and "what if's" get tiresome and just add confusion that must have been heart-wrenching for Kenley's mother and sister.

I quickly got the impression that the filmmaker was an amateur who really didn't understand the requirements of a good documentary and was just "flying by the seat of his pants" throwing everything at it and hoping something would stick. I was very surprised to learn that he had also directed "The Call of the Wild" doc about Christopher McCandless's ill-fated Alaska excursion, which I thought was very interesting.

It is difficult to understand why this series was even released when it had no resolution or real answers for Kenley's family. Highly speculative throughout, but naming names nonetheless. I can't begin to imagine the fallout for the family who blatantly pointed fingers at one of their own, naming that person as Kenley's murderer. The person may well be guilty, but we still don't know, and it seems highly irresponsible to name and shame without proof.

Are all small-town police as stupid and incompetent as the bunch on display here appear to be? Clues handed to them on a plate that they don't bother to follow up on. It's like the Three Stooges or Inspector Clouseau without the laughs. I once read that applicants for the police force are given IQ tests and anyone who measures over 104 is disqualified as being too smart and likely to become bored in the job. I can well believe it, seeing the blatant stupidity of this bunch. Then it turns out that the RCMP officer in charge is a cousin of the main suspect! Where on earth is this okay? Apparently in Wolfville, NS!

So much speculation, so many red herrings, so many unanswered questions. A great deal of time is spent talking about the "chicken pit" then the owner of the property says this alleged pit does not exist. Does anyone bother to go and find out? No. Including the police, who are told that is where Kenley's remains can be found, with no follow up.

Kenley seems like an amazing young man, full of intelligence and potential. Murder is horrible at any time, but to be murdered for the alleged reason suggested here and thrown away like trash compounds the horror. I don't know how his mother and sister have survived the dreadfulness for over 30 years now.

One more thing. The relentless soundtrack that didn't know when to shut up (do we really need background noise when people are talking?). I can hardly call it "music", as it was constantly drumming into the viewer "this is tense", "you should be on the edge of your seat now and if you're not, this "music" will put you there". Yes, it put me there in annoyance. Relentlessly hammering at your viewers is not helpful, does not move the narrative along, and just gives me a headache!

I did watch the whole thing but kept wondering when it would finally be over. I also thought "they better find Kenley by the end" to make this all worthwhile. I should have known better. It could have been half as long and twice as effective with it.

...so I watched it, and it WAS!!! Absolutely dreadful!! Silly, tedious, ridiculous and BORING from beginning to end. Where to start?

I suppose it was meant to be "suggestive" of an Agatha Christie, so England 1930s-1940s scenario. I got very little, or any, 1930s England feeling from this. Upon first meeting, the characters very casually call each other by their first names. Wrong. A cop shows up and displays his holstered gun. No. British police, to this day, do not carry firearms. But those are just fiddly details.

Bossy Boots, I mean Miranda Green (Mischa Barton's ridiculous character) takes charge, telling everyone what to do, and they do it. Who elected her boss? A young woman (she looks about 50 but I think she's closer to 35 IRL), a complete stranger to everyone, barks out orders and everyone silently obeys. Why? "And that's not a request..." she barks, and they all do whatever it is she's demanded this time.

She seems able, either by osmosis or amazing gifts of prognostication, to know what has happened, what will happen, who did it, and why, without the slightest hint of actual evidence. "Someone banged his head with the door," she announces, although neither she nor anyone else in the room (to her or our knowledge) witnessed it. She opines that someone lost his father young because his shoes aren't well cared for. Huh???

And s-l-o-w moving?!?!? It takes minutes for a character to walk a few feet from the sofa to the door, with a supposedly ominous soundtrack to back it up. She's just leaving the room! Is this meant to be scary? The soundtrack never lets up trying to tell us "Look out! Something creepy might happen!" Might. Doesn't.

And the characters never stop spouting cliches. The script is preposterous! Cliche characters as well. The craggy American "journalist", alcoholic, gum-chewing, chain-smoking, calls women "sweetheart"... straight out of Central Casting. Bizarre accents, as well. Another review mentioned accent accuracy (!) and gave an example of having worked with Indian people and therefore knew the Indian accent was accurate. Well, I don't know what film that person watched because there is no Indian character in this piece of trash, correct accent or not.

I actually caught myself falling asleep during this, but I was determined to watch it through to the sorry end. Invitation to a Murder, a blatant rip-off of Christie's "And Then There Were None," is so bad, no doubt it will generate either a TV series or countless sequels. Heaven forbid!

Besides being a poorly shot film, with tiresome scenes of people driving down highways, walking around, standing around, waiting for someone to answer phone calls, blah, blah, blah, it left me feeling rather queasy by the end. What a fantastically screwed up family this is! How bizarre that people can just let someone (a cruel, hard and self-righteous grandmother) take their children from them and do nothing about it!

Lee had the prize-wining parents from Hell, that's for sure! I couldn't believe what I was hearing about how Lee's mother used threats and violence to get Chris's dad to give up custody of him! What a nasty piece of work she is! That woman is sick, and SHE had the audacity to talk about how hurt SHE had been by Lee! Some people defy all logic and sense!

Early in the film Rob's father said he couldn't care less if he ever saw his own daughter again, referred to her as "the mother", and showed disgust and contempt for her. If she was screwed up, is there any wonder, with parents like those two?

I hope Rob and Chris get some closure and satisfaction out of finding their mother, but, good lord, the whole bunch of them need years of therapy!

Good idea poorly done. Just not funny. I got almost to the end of episode 5, despite my doubts all the way through. I like to give a show a chance and I was hoping it would improve. Ridiculous cartoon characters throughout. Nobody is realistic at all; just caricatures going through the motions reciting a dreadfully unfunny script written by people who, apparently, haven't a clue about "funny".

Simon Bird, with his moronic bowl haircut, dreadfully overacts, and looks demented. How can anyone take this show seriously? It is preposterous. I know there are a lot of "religious" sects with nonsensical beliefs that prevent them living joyous, fulfilling lives. I suppose a series could be made highlighting their far-fetched ideas with humour and (what is needed) sarcasm, but this isn't it. Let alone did I not laugh, I didn't even smile. I groaned. I rolled my eyes.

I suppose the (SPOILER) scene of mom throwing up in Andrew's treasured memorial to his wife is supposed to elicit howls of laughter. Maybe if you're in pre-school and think vomit is funny, otherwise, no. And that's when I turned it off. No more wasting time with this nonsense; clearly it is NEVER going to get funny as there's only one episode left. I am happy to miss it. I don't know why I'm even giving it three. The only sane character is Rachel's boyfriend. Everyone else is delusional, misguided, gullible and, in the case of the dad, a raging narcissist. Not much to laugh at there!

Two is a rather arbitrary rating, scenery was very pleasant and the acting was good all round. Other than that, what a miserable mess this was! I've eagerly waited months to see Banshees of Inisherin and then couldn't believe my eyes at the cruelty, misery, despair and general awfulness of the film. And it's labelled "comedy"? The most uncomedic film I've seen in many a year!

Any funny lines were already revealed in the trailer, so when I finally saw the film I was well familiar with anything humorous in it. Every charming moment was spoiled by the trailer. So the trailer was, in the end, more entertaining than the actual film.

Two mentally ill men, apparently long-time friends, spend most of the film going out of their way to make each other's lives miserable. As if they weren't miserable enough already, living small, restricted lives in what is, undeniably, a gorgeous location. Why one, a fiddle player of all things, decides to dismember himself in "retaliation" for his one-time friend "bothering" him, is beyond me. Clearly the man is mentally ill and needs serious help, but I don't care to sit around and witness them both going to hell in a handbasket.

Maybe it's all meant to be allegorical and has some deeply profound meaning that's gone over my head. To me it's two hours of despair, nastiness, bloodshed, stupidity, and a total waste of time. What a dreadful disappointment!

I have really been enjoying Bad Sisters, but I watched this episode feeling highly annoyed most of the way through.

SPOILERS!!!

1. Apparently this office where Eva works (while regularly being tormented by her A-hole brother-in-law) is the ONLY place in the known universe where she can find employment. For some reason the idea of escaping the misery in which she has long found herself has never occurred to her!?!?!?! Get up off your backside, Eva, go out and get yourself another job! You know, a place where your lovely self and your experience, knowledge and ability will be appreciated, MINUS that creep who makes your workplace hellish for you. Is Eva an indentured servant? Is she paying off some kind of debt to that company, keeping her tied to that office whether she likes it or not? I don't see any chains holding her down, so why on earth is she putting up with it? Get out while you can, Eva!!! Nobody is forcing you to endure that misery!

2. Even though some of these sisters apparently have jobs (see #1), they seem to have all the time in the world to drop everything else (jobs, kids, homes, families) to meet up any time, day or night, to while away the hours, and bottomless glasses of booze, dreaming up ways to carry out their major aim in life. All they have to do is text each other to appear here or there (usually at each other's multi-million-pound homes) and moments later, there they all are. Sitting around the table with no other demands on their time. I have no problem with what it is they're discussing. My bewilderment is how they all happen to have so much free time to discuss it in the first place.

3. Eva is NOT the boss of you! I know Eva raised them when their parents died, but Gordon Bennett! They're all (allegedly) grown up women now, so why do they let her boss them around? Eva says "no" so it's no. Think for yourselves, girls! Take a vote, if you must, but dictatorships are SO not the vibe!

4. They get themselves into the cold locker to see what's what. Then, beyond all reason and common sense, they STAY IN THERE, where JP could show up any second, standing around, in the cold, with the freezer door open (who's to say it might not swing shut on its own, with no way out????) having a conversation that could quite easily and much more sensibly be carried out warm and cozy at home, around the table, safe from lunatics, with a nice cuppa and a bickie to go with it. I was shouting at the screen: "What is wrong with you morons??? Get out of there!" Nobody listened to me, though.

5. Becka sits in the cupboard waiting for JP to enter the freezer. SOMEBODY enters the room, crosses the floor and goes into the cold locker. Does Becka actually SEE JP do this? No. She carries out the plan, returns the next day to complete the process, then goes to Eva and announces "The Prick is dead" and they embrace in relief. Did Becka SEE JP dead in the freezer? Again, no. She ASSUMED it was JP who entered it, assumed he was still in there and well dead, without even checking to be sure. The mind boggles at the stupidity. We shall have to wait a week to see who, if anyone, was in the freezer. I'll be very surprised if it was actually JP, although it would be most appropriate if it were. Then these sisters will have to find another excuse to while away endless hours sitting around boozing.

These are the kinds of things that kept me annoyed throughout this episode, and there were even more. Why does Gabriel care so much if his co-workers know he's gay? Is this 1957? Why does he believe JP when he knows what a (any insulting expletive here will do fine) he is? Why, oh why, did Gabriel risk his own life saving that doorknob JP??? (facetious/rhetorical question). Why would Gabriel think there might be something going on between Eva and JP (he wouldn't; it's just thrown in there for conflict), etc., etc.

This has to be one of the dumbest episodes yet. I felt so annoyed by the stupidity and ridiculous and completely unrealistic behaviour of, especially, Frankie, Brianna and Bud, that I wondered why I was still watching it. And it's only because I'm determined to see Grace and Frankie to its sadly spiralling-downward end. What started as a clever and witty show is now a pale imitation of itself.

Horrifically unfunny lawyer Bud sees himself as a future comedy great and is so immature and insecure he obsesses about it at every turn. Apparently he has no clients and no work to do, which is just as well. Somehow he thinks it's funny to betray his brother by revealing and mocking Coyote's secrets at a family get-together with his brother's fiancee and her parents. Yeah, big laughs there. Not.

But why single out Bud? He's only one of the self-obsessed, unhinged ninnies on display here. Brianna needs serious psychiatric help and we've known for a long time that Frankie is out of control, acting before she thinks about the consequences and hurting people she supposedly cares about.

Grace and Frankie is loaded with narcissists completely lacking in self-awareness or thoughts for anyone but themselves. It is a very sad ending to what once was a very welcome and bright television event.

Bye bye, Grace and Frankie. Don't let the door hit your sorry asses on the way out.