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Reviews
Fighting Man of the Plains (1949)
Railroad men, cattle men, a gambler, a bank robber, a woman who can't help being in love ... it's all here.
If you can set aside the implicit CSA sympathies (Quantrell's Lawrence pre-dawn ambush/massacre was "just war"), this is a solid, quick oater.
A little more complicated than most, greed, skullduggery, honor, betrayals, loyalties, and gun play (not to Peckinpah levels, but enough) abound here.
The script is tight and never lags. The acting and direction are top notch - Paul Fix's turn as Yancy, for example, could easily have slid to caricature but never does. Most of the men characters have some surprises and three-dimensionality to them. Unfortunately the women characters are strictly two-dimensional.
"Fighting Man of the Plains" has its flaws - the redeemable outlaw's past is whitewashed, Jim Dancer would never be so slow to reach his weapon (except as needed to advance the plot) and, as mentioned above, the women are cliché. Still, overall, it is 90 minutes well spent.
The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: One Guilty Deed (2006)
Caravans and criminals and karaoke.
At least two suspects are in the running for the murder, a contract killer and a bitter old man. Which suits the victim, as he was killed twice. A good mystery and a good solution, primarily thanks to Havers. I like that last episode and this she's allowed more of the lead in the detecting. Also that Lynley has stopped complaining/disparaging about it and begun encouraging it.
The caravan park brought a smile to my face. (I grew up in New Jersey, USA.) It and the town seemed a mash up of Asbury Park, Ocean Grove and Long Beach Island. Like Havers, I have fond memories.
The introduction of Martin is welcome. Someone besides Havers and Lynley working on things will make the investigations a bit more believable. I hope to see more of him.
As to the new Helen ...
Personally I find the new Helen annoying. Not that they swapped actors. But that they completely swapped characters. With no explanation.
Up until this series (the old) Helen was languid and deliberate and justalittlebit patronizing. This new one is bright and smiley and definitely Not to the manor born.
Every scene between Helen and Tommy in the first three series has now become a waste of my time.
And allow me one more thing. (Oh, yeah. I've read the other reviews.)
I have No interest in karaoke.
Watching/listening to flat, nonrhythmic singing live is annoying enough. But video of it rises to the level of ABH.
The two snippets here were mercifully brief,. They could have been briefer.
Midsomer Murders: Master Class (2010)
The female cliché is passé.
Well, I'm off the Midsomer Habit.
Routine sloppy handling of evidence, eh. Routine illegal searches (which apparently never cost the Crown at trial), eh. Routine "the killer is a nutter!", eh. Routine "get there in the nick of time to thwart the last murder attempt", eh. Routine script writing dependent upon weird, impossible time compressions (going from Point A to Point B, interviewing someone and getting back again waaay too soon) (on site pathology staying from dawn to dusk or, gone in an hour or so, whatever), eh.
I can live with all that. It's just a TV show, after all. They're on a budget, they're on a deadline, they have to keep crankin' 'em out. Over all, not a bad example of the BBC detective genre. Entertaining enough.
All that, and I was still not off the Midsomer habit.
But one aspect Has been piling up.
The constant habit of every woman who finds a body has to scream has annoyed me from the first. (Men, pretty much never.) (Maybe 2 exceptions each in ~70 scripts.)
Then several episodes ago the new DC walks away from a witness interview to cry about the school children who've lost their teacher.
Except I don't recall any of the four other cops ever having to stop their job to cry.
Barnaby tells the DC that's OK.
Except Barnaby has usually mocked his junior officers when they have shown any revulsion to a gruesome murder.
Oh. Did I mention this emotional reaction was on the part of the woman officer?
But, I'm still watching.
In this episode a strong willed (defies her parents, is focused on her career goal, etc.) woman, suddenly gives in to a man she HAS SEEN & KNOWS is faithless and untrustworthy and self-centered. Because, you know, he's a man. Handsome. And she wanted him before. So all she's learned about him cannot outweigh her need for him, the Handsome Man.
Then, the topper.
Here in "Master Class", Barnaby tells - nay, Orders - his DC, "You look after her, Stevens, No one is to talk to her, no one. Alright?" That's pretty cut and dried, is it not?
And the Detective Constable lets not one, but THREE people in to talk with the person of interest.
Heck, the Detective Constable even BRINGS THE PERSON A MILE OR MORE AWAY FROM WHERE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO STAY TO SEE AND TALK TO SOMEONE.
Oh, but this Detective Constable is a poor little, weak, sympathetic, wussy WOMAN Detective Constable. She can't really be expected to FOLLOW ORDERS like her male counterparts.
I know this is so, because Barnaby never corrects, never reprimands, never penalizes her. Because, you know, she's just a woman.
Of course she can't stop people from entering a room. Of course she will LEAVE THE PERSON ALONE with other folks because, safety and the investigation be da__ed, it's just Right to not interfere in someone else's business. Of course we can't expect her to act like a Real (read, male) Detective Constable.
I am so tired of this. The "allowances" for the fair sex. The scripts that use a woman's "weaknesses" as plot points. (I was a fan of Scott & Bailey until they kept kidnapping a cop and it was always a woman cop, all the way to the CHIEF DCI woman cop.) The routine "otherwise smart woman lets obviously lousy man woo her" bit.
That's it. I'm off the Midsomer habit.
Midsomer Murders: Blood on the Saddle (2010)
History wrong, forensics sloppy, legality wrong, morality questionable, plot pedestrian.
Normally I watch Midsomer Murders and accept what goes on - the flaunting of search warrants, the just-got-there-in-the-nick-of-time endings, the motives going back 2 or 3 or 30 generations, the generous use of a nutter as the culprit, and all the other "this is surely fantasy policing in fantasy settings" habits of the show, large and small. Through 12+ series, I have only thought one or two episodes less than 7 stars.
Blood on the Saddle, however ...
The Stars and Bars represent the American South, NOT the American West. Aside from Texas, no other western state was in the CSA. By the time and place of Billy the Kid (~1875-1881; AZ & NM) virtually no one was flying that banner.
The historical research seems to have been limited to those 50's Western movies where the hero was some dislocated Johnny Reb.
Lazy and stupid and all the more so since it seems there may have been actual research effort regarding the USA flags displayed. They appear to have 45 stars, as was accurate in 1896.
Barnaby gets a bullet in a hand delivered post and immediately puts his prints all over the shell and the envelope. (Though admittedly this disturbance of evidence is SOP for all Causton police.)
Barnaby bursts in on a man CHOKING A WOMAN AGAINST A WALL. After grabbing him away from the assault, rather than cuff and caution the man Barnaby favors the gent with an intervening bear hug and a kindly, "No, that's enough." Disgusting. Then he begins to say "If she wants to press charges ..." before the man interrupts. Wrong. A Detective Chief Inspector witnessed a brutal assault. There is no need for any sort of victim's consent to press charges. The WITNESSING DETECTIVE CHIEF INSPECTOR has all the necessary authority to arrest. Again, disgusting.
Later, Barnaby lets someone else off with a simple caution for "threatening behaviour, inappropriate sexual conduct, (and) drunken charge" concerning a separate assault. The disgust here gets ratcheted up a notch since it's THE SAME WOMAN in both assaults. Apparently, if you're female, you have to wait to get killed before Tom will look to bring your assailant to justice.
Oh, and one more thing about the history. Billy the Kid's legal "nemesis" was Pat Garrett. Good grief, their names formed the title of a popular 1973 Western. Wyatt Earp was probably never within 500 miles of Billy.
All of which pulled me far, far away from any suspension of disbelief. Not to worry though. The script fairly shouted the killer's identity before the first hour was up, so there wasn't much disbelief to suspend. And the motive was so mundane it made all that time watching the bad history, bad procedures, and horrific judgment even less worthwhile.
Again, I've had no weighty complaint for close to 70 episodes. I've enjoyed and been, mostly, entertained.
But those flags were just the Laziest Production and the misogynist policing so gratuitous ...