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Tag: Dermot Crowley

QuickView: Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)

“You have come so far, there’s no going back.”

David Robey

Luther was already one of the best-looking of the BBC’s prestige shows, that cinematography translating well to a feature-length production that replicates its moody tone. The Fallen Sun (a bizarre title that has nothing to do with the plot) borrows ideas liberally from sources like Black Mirror but it does little to build on those themes of technology-fuelled blackmail and control. Idris Elba remains ever-compelling as the gravelly, heavy-set detective John Luther, but the problem with long-running series about maverick professionals like Luther and House is that it eventually becomes untenable that they would keep their positions. The Fallen Sun overcorrects as its villain — a scenery-chewing Andy Serkis — decides he wants Luther out of the way and inexplicably succeeds in having him arrested and locked up in a high-security prison within the space of a scene. This level of looseness and absurdity undermines much of the tension: characters travel to Norway as if hopping on a bus, whilst Robey abruptly shifts from a methodical serial killer to a rash showman staging an elaborate scene in Piccadilly Circus. Luther always existed in a heightened reality, but The Fallen Sun largely abandons reality to serve a script that seemingly wants to re-establish John as a James Bond-like character to justify his actions. The result is an incoherently messy film that fails to captures the series’ early success beyond its visual flair and Elba’s charisma.

4/10

QuickView: Deception (2013)

“Human emotions are like works of art. They can be forged.”

Billy Whistler

Originally titled The Best Offer on release, the newer title Deception is blunter but more thematically descriptive of writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore’s study of a lonely art expert who becomes intrigued by a reclusive heiress and a collection of clockwork components in her possession. Geoffrey Rush draws out Virgil Oldman’s contradictions: he is fastidious but capable of kindness, he takes pride in his professionalism yet deceives clients about the veracity of certain artwork so he can acquire it cheaply. Sylvia Hoeks is mysterious and alluring despite being restricted to acting with her voice alone for half the film. Tornatore conjures atmosphere effectively, but his allegory comparing human interaction and artistic immitation is ponderously repetitious and lacks real substance. Nor can the quality of the acting save the story with a twist telegraphed so frequently that it becomes frustrating. Deception is heavily atmospheric, aided by Fabio Zamarion’s beautiful cinematography that, like the protagonist, can be both aloof and intimate, with grand shots like Oldman’s illicit collection of portraits dwarfing him as they gaze down. As an atmospheric character study Deception works, then, but that leaves a considerable balance that does not.

5/10

"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."

(CC) BY-NC 2003-2023 Priyan Meewella

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