Reviews

This film is so lauded I had to give it another go, after being disappointed the first time I watched it about 20 years ago. I'm a huge fan of the Chandler novels, but this film really made me wonder if Altman had ever even read one of them. One of the beautiful characteristics of Chandler's Marlowe is his sympathy towards victims of violence and abuse. He wasn't concerned with legal rights and wrongs, but morality. The character in the books would never have allowed what happened to the lady with the coke bottle to go unpunished. Gould's character just offers her a cigarette and then when she says no, just walks off mumbling to himself: "it's okay with me"! He kept saying this throughout the film. Chandler's Marlowe was sharp, intelligent and witty, whereas the character in the film just seemed to be a callous smart arse that constantly mumbled to himself like he was auditioning for Rainman.

Yes, I am a fan of the books and Bogart's version, but even if this wasn't named after the Chandler characters and book I doubt if I would have enjoyed it anyway.

Forget it Jake, it's not Chinatown!

I really like Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham usually but, there were so many things that annoyed me about this drama. The main plot line claims Jodie Comer's character had found her calling in life and had a gift for connecting with the residents. As far as I can see she was only heavily and inappropriately connecting with one of the residents.

Her character was in no way heroic. She ran around shouting the odds, swearing all of the time, as though she had been working in care for years, and when she had one difficult night she fell apart when she needed to be strong.

The heroes in care are the ones that have worked in the underpaid, and under appreciated profession for years, and are professional and treat all of the residents with equal kindness and attention. This drama didn't celebrate those carers, but instead one that had tried it on a temporary basis who thought she knew better than everybody else.

This drama made it also seem like the home owner went awol as well, but he didn't! He had covid so had to isolate.

Jodie Comer's characters solution at the end was so juvenile. How is it in Stephen Graham's character's best interest to be shacked up in an old caravan eating mouldy old bread?!

I can't believe Harry would be that stupid. I think this season has been really poor compared to the first two seasons and this episode just sank to a new low. It annoys me how he can kill someone and then he can carry on roaming around as free as a bird, whilst our main man apologises to him for being aggressive when he came to his home. I've just looked up at my tv screen and they are now hugging in the next episode. I can't wait for this agony to be over, as it looks like it picks up again in the fourth season.

It's a shame as I've really enjoyed this series on the whole.

Just a shame this season was the usual 8 episodes and not just 1 or 2 at the most!

Someone earlier said that they ended up routing for the villain, but I think that was the point, which is why they reconciled at the end. They grew up like brothers and one got the bad break and spent 18 years in jail, whilst Adonis ended up living the dream life with a gorgeous family. And he didn't reach out to his friend and so, no wonder he grew up feeling bitter and hate, having been completely abandoned. Personally I didn't think of him as a villain like Ivan 'if he dies, he dies' Drago, or Clubber Lang. This wasn't black and white, like good versus evil. It was more grey and a maturer story for that. Even the grandma was guilty for withholding the letters.

I agreed with one reviewer however that the second half seemed a bit rushed, but still found it enjoyable and I found there was plenty of heart in this story, especially when the grandma was dying. Jordan certainly impressed me more in this film as a maturer Adonis, family man and loving father and grandson rather than spending the entire film being moody with a massive chip on his shoulder which which I got a bit fed up with in the earlier films.

I also thought he did a great job in the directors chair.

It would be a bit much to expect it to be as great as some of the Rocky films (there is only one Stallone after all l) but this is still a really good film in my opinion,