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Reviews
Bad Blood 2 (2008)
Pedestrian dialogue, plotting, undistinguished direction undermines performances
While I truly wish to see Canadian productions and performers flourish, it's hard to see something like Bad Blood, Season 1 and Season 2, ep 1, as nothing more than a shadow of its American counterparts in the vein of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, and Better Call Saul. These series provide complex characters and pointed, cobra-like dialogue combined with sinuous, sophisticated plotting against a backdrop where violence, death and imprisonment are truly palpable and visceral threats. Characters walk on a highwire where the stakes are high. In Bad Blood, the violence and bloodshed lack punch, thanks to undistinguished direction. Despite the assiduous efforts of Kim Coates and Co, this is tame, stereotypical episodic television. Maybe Season 2 will improve as it progresses, but if Episode 1 is any indication, it will be more of the same, a crime drama lacking in depth, nuance and horror.
It All Happens Incredibly Fast (2002)
Incredibly Insipid
A people-under-siege film that quickly defies the suspension of disbelief to devolve into a rather labored drama intended to mine tension from chippy character interplay. A denizen from an after hours bar runs afoul of some baddies whom, after a tussle, are beaten back but apparently remain hovering menacingly outside the bar. One of their rank is apparently lying dead on the bar room floor after being bopped by the aforementioned denizen. A mysterious passerby (Maurice Dean Wint) who has helped to thwart the baddies remains inside and takes centre stage with card tricks, demands for a specialty drink called The Rifleman, regales dark stories from his past and plays mind games with the rest of the edgy, sketchily drawn troupe.. Meanwhile, the cops and ambulance are nowhere to be seen. (Who gets voicemail when dialling 911???) In a post-script scene, resident barflies are left to fill in the huge blanks left by the script. We're to assume that this dubious tale has become a thing of local urban myth.
The actors try mightily but, as is often the case of too many Canadian films, they are undone by a hoary script. A Long Night's Journey into Angst this ain't. Understandably, this sad entry did not achieve wide distribution.
Bad Blood (2017)
Commercial network hurts presentation
Perhaps it is unfair to evaluate performances and presentation, but mood is lost when we leave a dramatic scene for a yogurt commercial. But beyond that, there is something oddly flat and pedestrian about this effort. It is interesting to examine the true-life underside of Montreal--the U.S. does not have sole rights to mobsters--but the gravitas of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire is sadly wanting here. The still images in the opening credits, particularly Kim Coates (with that vampire-like hooded,coloured eye business)and Paul Sorvino looking like a menacing bulldog provides unfulfilled promise of true explosive threat and menace thatwe expect out of the principals. They aren't helped by a plain-Jane script that doesn't allow for much layering or nuance. The series TALKS rather than really SHOWS. Dialogue provides by-the-numbers exposition. A lot of the acting comes off as theatrical vs authentic. Certainly there are violent scenes but they don't really resonate. The female characters in particular are ill-served---whether a crusading lawyer or politician or mistress---come off as either overly shrill or whiny, whereas no-nonsense street-wise savvy and seductiveness are non-existent. The males do not get off unscathed either, lacking in depth. Scenes of meetings with other mobsters have groups of guys trying real hard to LOOK tough and mean like movie standees trying to exude explosive menace. Using slow motion whenever Anthony Lapaglia strolls around is to suggest a bigger-than-life cold-blooded ruthless lion but we don't FEEL it. (The same approach was used when Colm Feore portrayed Pierre Trudeau several years ago, much to the same toothless effect--no fault in effort by Mr. Feore.) We want to see more home-grown Canadian productions but to distinguish themselves against non-commercial cable networks is a challenge.
Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983)
Superb, romanticized rendering of Britain's first secret agent
I fortuitously got turned onto Reilly courtesy of a television review in the Toronto Star, to which I am eternally grateful. I might have missed it otherwise. Reilly was a terrific series. Heavily romanticized and perhaps not quite factually accurate to be sure, but an absolute, rewarding joy nonetheless. The original PBS broadcast of "Mystery" was embellished by the intros and epilogues rendered eloquently by the late great Vincent Price, whose narrative provides a valuable context. Shostakovitch's score sets the tone---romantic, redolent of a bygone era. The series was my introduction to Sam Neill, whose facial image---hard-eyed, with that ruthless slash of a mouth---prefaces the credits. Wonderful set and costume design. Good supporting cast, particularly the wonderful Leo McKern. Terrific script by Troy Kennedy Martin. This inspired me to see out paperbacks on Reilly. A worthwhile addition to anyone's television collection, to stand alongside Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner.
Hotel Babylon (2006)
Babylon: OK Bit of Fluff
Hotel Babylon is a slick bit of business, superficial yet entertaining enough to a degree; the show does benefit from Max Beesley's observant second-in-command, aloof and cool, all-seeing on the lobby floor, his interior monologue serving to give us a sense of a philosophical insider's perspective. Dexter Fletcher benefits from being one of those street-wise, connected types who seems to have a remedy for every problem. Oddly, despite her glitzy status as manager, Tasmine Oouthwaite came off sexier and more personable in the gritty drama The Fixer than she does here, where her character is often hard yet brittle, with only intermittent flashes of humanity. Again, the goings-on are slickly rendered with the break-neck pacing, cross-cut story lines and slick production values to keep us distracted.
As the series went along though, two problems became increasingly apparent. One, the hotel crew are always up to something, some sort of cover-up or switcheroo, whether in the name of their clientele or themselves or both in some instances, which may in reality be part of the territory but they come off as a kind of a deceitful, slapdash bunch, hardly as all knowing, professional and savvy as they're made out to be, all ultimately deserving the sack. Secondly, the characters generally do not come off as likable or honourable, more obsessed with making a buck. There is one episode where the Raymond Coulthard character cheats in a wine-tasting competition, going up against an old rival. One could have empathy for him if he was dealing with some n'er-do-well who deserves comeuppance, but Coulthard's catty character is merely desperate and out of his depth, compromising a colleague to aid in the deceit. Do we like this guy? Nope. We're not given enough character development to think otherwise. Ditto for the self-absorbed lobby receptionist, who's petty, venal and superficial. True, people like this can be found in any workplace, but watching them week after week minus any other redeeming traits gets a bit tiresome.
I realize these are picky complaints but if our protagonists were bit more rounded or at least made empathetic or charming in spite of their foibles, then the series might have had some resonance and depth, raising it beyond the trifle that is, dissipating from the mind as quickly as a wafer disappearing from the tongue. Nothing lasting beyond the initial sensation.