Birger Larsen | 84 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | Sweden / Swedish | 15
It would seem there’s a market in Sweden for series of feature-length crime dramas that begin with a first episode released in cinemas before continuing in regular direct-to-DVD/TV instalments. It’s what happened with the Krister Henriksson Wallander (which eventually totted up five theatrical releases across its three series), and the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films also exist in cropped and lengthened TV versions (released in the UK and US as “extended editions”). The latest example is Crimes of Passion, the first episode of which debuted in cinemas in March 2013, before five more feature-length mysteries were released on DVD between August and November the same year. In the UK, it’s the latest Scandi-crime acquisition for BBC Four, airing in their regular “foreign crime” slot of Saturday nights at 9pm.
Marketed as “Mad Men meets The Killing”, it would be more accurately described as “Agatha Christie with subtitles”. There’s some of the ’60s style of the US critical hit — not least a detective who looks like he’s Don Draper’s twin brother — and there’s murder with a Scandinavian accent, as per the cause célèbre of Nordic Noir; but those are surface similarities. The fundamental elements are Christie through and through: a small group of people in a confined location where one (or more) mysteriously dies and the detective solves the case simply by interviewing the suspects, all in a pretty early-20th-Century setting. There’s a little more nudity (a skinny-dipping bottom!) and gore (a fly-bothered corpse!) than Poirot or Miss Marple usually have to deal with, but anyone au fait with the ITV iterations of those characters from the last twenty-or-so years will be in comfortable territory here.
The specifics of the plot see young university lecturer Puck (Tuva Novotny) invited to spend midsummer on the island home of her supervisor, who’s really asking on behalf of attractive history lecturer Eje (Linus Wahlgren), who Puck has been to a café with three times. A whole gaggle of old chums of Rutger and Eje are also there, including a couple of uninvited guests who arrive out of the blue — and before you know it, Puck finds one of them dead. Eje calls in his chum, detective Christer Wijk (Ola Rapace), and, after the island is cut off from the mainland in a more permanent fashion, the three set about getting to the bottom of things. Cue suspicious actions spied through trees, suspicious conversations partially overheard, suspicious evasion of perfectly reasonable questions, and all the usual suspiciousness you’d expect from a Christie narrative — only subtitled.
The storytelling is very much on a par with recent Poirot and Marple TV adaptations, for better or worse — if you enjoy those (as I do), then this should float your boat also; if they’re not your cup of tea, this doesn’t have anything startlingly original to add to the mix. There’s some pretty cinematography by Mats Axby, and director Birger Larsen’s choice of a 2.35:1 aspect ratio is shorthand for movie-quality, but isn’t inherently backed up by what’s in the frame. That isn’t to say it’s badly directed, just not strikingly cinematic. It’s a completely standalone tale at least, unlike some of those Wallanders, which were very much episodes-of-a-series that happened to get a big screen outing.
Novotny makes for a likeable lead, though the attempted love triangle between her, Wahlgren and Rapace feels like a non-starter. The biggest surprise is Rapace: previously seen as troubled young copper Stefan Lindman in Wallander and, most famously, as shaven-headed silent assassin Patrice in Skyfall, here he’s every inch the slick Draper ladies’ man. That he ends up seeming to do less detecting than Novotny’s amateur sleuth isn’t too troubling.
How well Crimes of Passion works for BBC Four remains to be seen, but it’s suitably different to their usual dour Scandi acquisitions to perhaps tempt in a different kind of viewer. Or maybe just inspire an interest in our good old murder-mystery yarns for anyone previously too highfalutin’ to bother.
Death of a Loved One is available on BBC iPlayer until 10:25pm tonight. The second episode, King Lily of the Valley, is on BBC Four at 9pm.
Adapted very loosely from the early Conan Doyle story The Five Orange Pips, this outing for Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce’s Dr Watson sees them summoned to Scotland to investigate the suspicious deaths of the members of a club, where each killing is preceded by an ominous postal warning.
While the club having seven members does mean there’s a fair few suspects, it also means it takes a long time to get through them all being bumped off! It doesn’t sink so low as to be deemed repetitive, but does border it.
The 
“He’s not a person Tina, he’s a Daily Mail reader.”
2014 Academy Awards
On its theatrical release, a commonly-cited recommendation was to see Gravity in 3D on the biggest screen possible. Obviously, I didn’t bother. Some say it isn’t as effective on a small screen in 2D. Maybe it isn’t as effective, but it’s still a damn fine film.
quick editing has always been a way of creating excitement in that arena), the never-ending shots serve to make you feel closer to events, right alongside Bullock, almost wishing it would stop. Plus there’s skill in being able to show us what we need to see from a single vantage point, without the easy option of being able to cut to a different angle to clarify a detail.
The most high-profile jobs — the actors, the studio — may be American, but everything else is pretty darn British. Rather than cry “that’s ridiculous! Give it to a proper British film!”, we should be keen to point out that, actually, this surprise global mega-hit wasn’t made in America, but in Britain, by all the talented filmmakers we have here. Rule Britannia, etc etc!
While I sympathise with the idea that it’s not A Science Fiction Movie, but instead A Thriller (That Happens To Be Set In Space), you can’t really deny its SF-ness. OK, if we’re classing this as SF then so too should be films like 
I found 
The rest of the cast are a mix of old and new — clearly, some managed to wriggle out of a second go-round. Talulah Riley, Tamsin Egerton and 
The follow-up to 2009’s 
indeed, a band of outré ninjas are introduced almost as soon as our heroes, and they set off on an OTT plotline simultaneously. As the film wears on, it disappears further and further into fantasy; and not “version of our world” fantasy, but “kids’ Saturday morning cartoon” fantasy. The plot suggests the violence etc should be slightly toned down and the whole affair should have a PG, or even a U. Much like the first film, then.
Elsewhere in that making-of, the guys from Hasbro talk about how they wanted to ensure the characters were distinct, not just Generic Soldiers. Failed that, then. It’s fortunate that most of the Joes are massacred because the only stand-outs are The Rock (because he’s The Rock), Channing Tatum (because he was in the first one), and Adrianne Palicki (because she’s the only girl). Even once D.J. Cotrona’s Flint (and I had to IMDb both of those names) is one of just three Joes left, his only distinguishing features are that he’s Not The Rock and Not The Girl. He is, to use a phrase borrowed from the Hasbro guys, a Generic Soldier. “Oops.”
The Lair of the White Worm looks cheap, has a ridiculous story, overacted characters and overcooked dialogue, and by all rights should be a disaster. And maybe it is… but I don’t think so. In the right frame of mind, at any rate, it’s a whale of a time.
Good will towards the participants counts for a lot, though. Tom Hiddleston’s Loki steals pretty much any scene he’s in, but Chris Hemsworth’s Thor is not an unlikeable hero, building further on the responsibility-and-honour story arc of the first film. Idris Elba also benefits from an expanded role, but others are less lucky: one of the Warriors Three is ditched as soon as we’re reacquainted with him; more criminally, Christopher Eccleston’s villain has nought to do but stomp around spouting exposition in a made-up language. Anyone could play that role, you don’t need an actor of Eccleston’s ability. Maybe something got cut (though it’s not in the Blu-ray’s deleted scenes), because I don’t see why else he’d’ve taken the part. Well, possibly the payday.
Despite the title, there’s much fun to be had with The Dark World. It can’t deliver on all of its aims — the equally-promised expansion of Thor and Jane’s relationship is equally sidelined — but there’s enough entertainment value to make it a worthwhile proposition. Perhaps the longer lead-in that the third film seems to be getting (there’s no announced slot for it among Marvel’s numerous future release dates, meaning it’s unlikely to arrive before 2017) will allow them to round everything out a little better.
Residents of a condemned high-rise witness a gang-related murder, but don’t intervene and deny all to the police. Months later, a sniper begins to pick them off. Can they band together and survive?
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