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Reviews
Person of Interest: Firewall (2012)
Great season closer
Everyone loves this episode, right? (Except perhaps the Shaw-fans) What is not to love here because this episode combines everything that makes PoI a great TV-show. Nolan and Plageman wrote the script and their handwriting is obvious. Who else could combine four storylines in such a smooth way into one hell-of-a-ride episode with a very emotional cliffhanger at the end?
Perhaps it is a matter of personal preferance, but I like this episode better than the end-episodes of s. 2 or s. 3. It is only one episode and not a double one like the others and therefore much more coherent and contained. The action is reduced to two places (FBI-room and hotel) which adds to the drama aspect.
Plus we get finally to see Root and her introduction couldn't be more topnotch with a plot-twist that the actress handles in an adorable way. Being a frightened, very pretty and female looking number-of-the-week until nearly to the end and then just by opening her hair (and killing someone) turns everything around and becomes a really "scary chick" (Fusco's words). In rewatching you might detect some flaws in her innocent appearance f.e. when the killers advance front and back in the street scene, the camera catches the look on her face and she is not frightened at all! Then the expert way she handled the elevator cables and her analysing Reese in the beginning - of course she couldn't read this only from being with him for a short time in a room.
Reese is so nice towards Root, trying to protect her in the most desperate situation ("when they are moving in just stay behind me"), no need for her to be so rude towards him in most all of the following episodes!
I admire this episode very much, even Nolan himself picked it at an occasion as his favourite episode. The tension is rising until we find Reese and Root trapped in an elevator with the FBI coming down and HR below installing an explosive trap. Only the genius of Finch can find a way out and Reese acknowledges it right away.
(One thing that astonishes me always are those pillars in the parking level of a supposedly very good hotel - they look like they could crumble every minute because they are so rotten. Wouldn't be possible here in my country - I think.)
And there are Carter and Fusco - this bathroom scene is just adorable and highly fulfilling. Of course they don't hesitate to rush to Reese' rescue only to end up in a car with him and he is not sorry at all ("trust is a complicated thing - f.e. I am sitting in a police car with one cop who tried to shoot me and another who spend six month trying to lock me up"). The look on their faces when he blows up the car of the bad guys is just gold!
But his badass manner ("We shall all go and grab a drink together" straightening of jacket) will be punished soon when he finds out about Finch being gone. This last scene when he walks into the empty library is really sad - and we get all this in the course of barely 10 minutes.
In the pedia-of-interest there is described how this episode mirrors the pilot episode in many ways and of course it ends in the same way - Reese looking up on the security cam - but then the phone rings. No way someone who watched all 23 ep. until this point wouldn't want to go on right into season 2.
Person of Interest: 4C (2014)
Free will
Mr. Reese, I understand your frustration with the opacity of the Machine, but there's a reason I chose to make it that way. The Machine only gives us numbers, because I would always rather that a human element remain in determining something so critical as someone's fate. We have free will. And with that comes great responsibility and sometimes great loss. I miss her dearly, too.
- Finch
But the machine has already moved on to a higher level, which is an astonishing thing. It moves around Finch and acts on its own decision. Not only has it given the relevant number (the sphinx) to the ISA who has set an operative on the flight to take out Owen. It seems to have reconsidered its action by not trusting this operative to also save the passengers. So it acts on it's own by directing Reese on this flight (so much for free will!) in trusting his ability to save everybody. The episodes name 4c sounds like foresee, that is exactly what the machine does. Finch still believes in his rules and accepts John's resignation as his decision of free will, the machine doesn't. In the episodes Lethe and Aletheia he blames the machine by not giving him enough help to save Carter. But obviously he is also angry at Finch. That becomes clear in his angry speech to Owen: You computer guys - you built something you can't control and when it backfires you won't accept responsibility. Have you really made anything better? Owen can feel that this is not about him.
Helping people:
The episode is obviously about bringing Reese back to the team. He is walking without purpose, falling into bad habits by feeling depressed and drinking too much. When he is asked about baggage his answers is no baggage which is a nice wordplay because it is quite clear from the look of his face and his clearly NOT wearing a suit that we know: This guy has a lot of baggage! The line of thought was started with Fusco's discussion with Simmons before fighting him and continued in the prison cell with John one episode later. John: What was it exactly we are doing? Fusco: Helping people! This is now lost on John, but he is still the good guy who gives up his seat, helps the old lady with her baggage and has his way of dealing with the dushbag who knows better when to shut off his phone. Holly is also in the business of helping people but in an ordinary job. Like John she is frustrated with humanity: What has happened to people just helping other people? She asks John who has no answer for her at this moment. But the machine has figured him out long ago. This is the guy who says in his last words that saving one person at a time is anticlimactic and finds solace in his purpose to save his best friend and the world. So now he needs something better than just saving the nerd who brought it all to himself like Leon before. But saving 130 passengers might do the job.
Shaw:
Shaw now has to take John's place as investigator and general badass. That scene at the travel agency was obviously only planted there to give her the speech about feeding the tie. Much more subtle is the scene in the restaurant with her old buddy Hersh. Such a great job of the actor of the terminator Hersh whose tongue is set loose by the drug. He knows it and cannot help it, so he is answering with clenched teeth, and that last question about Shaw's new employers - so heartwarming coming from this stonecold killer!
Goof points to:
- fighting with anything else but a gun in short succession: knife, corkscrew, fork, thermos, plastic bag, pen, guitar, sissors, hairspray, golfcub
- to the passengers that never notice anything
- to the guy with the phone and the aggravating kid
- to Reese knocking people out and covering them with blankets
- to Reese pushing drinks on everyone: himself, Owen, Holly and even the kid (Titus!) (he has lost his scalpel or maybe never had one)
- to the knocked out guys who stay so for hours
- to the three kinds of assassins coming for the little dude
- to the little nerdy dude who takes Fusco's place in name calling. When Fusco called John Mr. Tall-dark-and deranged, Owen calls him right at the beginning Mr. dark and stormy, the ASI-guy is the walking steroid, John is Mr. blanket-coverup and so on
- to John, the ex-international spy, who is just crap at lying: International Homeland Security Agency
- to Finch landing the plane with a game-controller
- to Finch inviting John to an art exihibition
- to another incredible suit of Finch
Person of Interest: The Contingency (2012)
Season opener episodes are just the best
No time for the usual entry speech - this is all the machines perspective, beginning with it's first eye-opening to see it's creators face (Can you see me? - in opposition to Can you hear me? which has been discussed here last week). The machine gives us a short summary of season 1 in it's own black-and-white style with glimpses of important conversations. And the story picks up at the exact same moment where it left, when Reese picks up the phone after urging the machine for it's help to find Finch - only this time the viewer can hear the eery voice that is a compilation of many voices, male and female: Uncertainty/Romeo-Kilo, Family/Alpha-Mike), Reflections/Juliet-Oscar. So strange and mysterious, although some of them might mirror John's feelings, like uncertainty, Alpha (Finch), Family and Reflections. The machine is searching for Harold and finds him in a cafe with Root and we are back into PoI's complicated storytelling:
- John and Leon sorting out his mess with the Nazis money and with Carter and Fusco helping them,
- Harold and Root on a mysterious journey,
- Special Council, Denton Weeks and Hersh looking into the murder of Alcia Corwin,
- Flashbacks about the machines beginnings and explanation why it didn't protect Finch.
Person of Interest: Terra Incognita (2015)
About the composition of Terra Incognita
Instead of the usual intro we see only a black screen at the beginning, we hear a shot, labored walking and the sound of howling wind. And like the beginning of a stage play when the curtain opens, the scenery is static with frontal view into the stake out car of Reese. The wordy complaint of Finch about Bear eating his books is funny and so like Finch! He has to water the beast - I like that! So this must be around the beginning of season two - right? Carter comes and joins the friendly bantering. By second watching and knowing of what is to come one realizes that John is pushing the heat button of his car and is obviously somehow in pain when he touches his shoulder.
Then Carter drops that sentence that is a big clue: "I am homicide. Usually when your spending time with me you're already dead." And then this: "I've seen a lot of dead bodies. Know what they had in common? Not one of the looked like they saw it coming?" The image that popped up immediately in my mind was the shot out of nowhere that killed Carter. So this is a hint of what is in her future seen from somewhere in the past? Of course not!
The viewers are by now used to the flashback scenes, they are usually in a different light, some blue filter is an easy indication. So when the light is clear again and we find Reese and Fusco at work this seems to be going the normal way of a PoI episode. There are some things for Root, Finch and Fusco to do with the gang war between Dominic and Elias and Reese picks up the case file from the number of the day - Chase Patterson which is in Carters effects box. Why this is so I don't understand, because it was a case of seven years ago - clearly a plot hole.
Then there is that moment when John finds his and Jessica's picture, which obviously affects him, even Fusco notices that there is something wrong with his partner.
The middle part of the episode shows how Carter and John investigate the murder of Chase' family, going the same ways and ending up both in that cabin in the Catskills. This is nicely done with different light, Carters scenes all with blue filter.
The interrogation of Chase by Joss is really like we remember her, skilled, intelligent and with a lot of emotional understanding of the relationship between him and his mother. John's interrogation blends in nicely but it is not going so well, he cannot connect to Chase, he acts more aggressive and mistrusting than Carter.
There are some things that are a bit over the top, like Root showing up with a scalpel for the interrogation of Carlo or that the murderer of Chase family cut their throats. I cannot relate to stuff like that, it is somehow too much and too unlikely.
When the scenery changes back to the stakeout car we see that Carter really tries to get John to speak to her. She is telling about herself, about her son and she dreams of a beach. But John is still reluctant and then there is this: "There is no after for people like us, no beach for you and no retirement for me." So now we should have known how it would end for John, he wasn't going to survive, right? He told us himself! When the light of the bar turns off I got a strong feeling of melancholy and sadness, that scene was perfect like the scenery of a stage play.
By close watching one can see that the background sometimes changes to a dark white - even before we know that John will be sitting in the car in the snowy Catskills later. Joss and John pick up their talk, that they already had when she was interrogating him in Prisoners dilemma.
One path or another - this is the same topic of Caviezel's earlier film Frequency where the fate of his character changed several times according to changing circumstances. And John is still struggling with his own choices and how it changed his fate and that of Jessica. But Carter wants to know more and pushes him until she gets the truth, which is exactly what Jessica said at the airport: "The real reason you left was that it was easier for you to be alone." This must be a painful insight for him that it was not some honorable motive, like wanting her to find someone better than him. And shortly before Fusco shows up with "dinner" he says that: "I'll get where I'm going soon enough". Carter doesn't understand and neither do we at this point. He finally opens up and talks about Jessica. Joss the detective knows better when he still is not honest about his motive and even mentions "his police shrink" - but how does she know about Iris?!
That is the point when the situation is getting weird. Carter wants to know why he ended up here and she tells him that time is running out. That look of confusion and fear on his face and her expression of compassion when she tells him - You're dying, John - was perfect - actingwise and storywise. Shayamalan couldn't have done this better.
Reality kicks in, the broken car window, the dead guy in the snow, the empty seat beside John and his bloody shirt. The following back and forth between him and Carter about what to do now is now clearly something that John is discussing with himself in his mind, still putting the words into the mouth of his imagination of Carter. She is even his drill sergeant when he is crawling through the snow to get the keys. He is really suffering now, not only because of the wound and the cold, but of the look back on his life and the mistakes. But Joss has also hopeful words for him, she tells him what he often said to her - you are not alone, there are people who care for you. In the small scenes with Harold, Root and Fusco that are now truly worried, we see that this is true.
With some silent tears rolling down, John finally accepts his fate and Jim Caviezel chose the right song to underline the feeling of the last scenes: Nat Coles Happy New Year: "I love the time we spent together before the last year lost it's shine. I'll keep that memory locked within my heart, that happy new year you were mine."
Person of Interest: RAM (2014)
Mr. Dillinger is the man in the suit (not quite) and John Reese is not (yet).
The beginning of this episode is a game with viewer expectations and playing with it. First we get the old s. 1 intro up to the sentence: But I needed a partner....then the machine interrupts and rolls back in time but not giving us the date - yet.
The following scene of the man in the suit saving a damsel in distress could be out of Finch's playbook but is all so wrong at the same time. Finch wears his old glasses. Then we find out it is 2010.
Let us compare Mr. Dillinger and Mr. Reese:
Mr. Dillinger:
- wears a perfect dark suit, white shirt, no tie, haircut the same as Reese later
- badass demeanor but then it goes all wrong when he says "protector of the innocent" John would never have said something that blunt, and ends up in bed with the lady.
- Kills the bad guys
- Wants the weekend off
- Brags about his blackwater-time
- Is an awful macho towards women ("she should have made me dinner", that sad expression on the woman's face after he leaves her bed). John on the other hand likes women and always treats them with respect and politeness, even those who are insulting him like Root.
- Doesn't know that Finch hates coffee, their relationship is somehow off, not trusting, Finch hasn't told him about the machine (whereas he tells John right at the beginning).
- Dillinger likes what he gets out of the job (women and money, John gives his money away to charitiy), is really full of himself, doesn't care about the people he is saving, awful how he treats Casey
- refers to himself as a shark (later Reese refers to himself as a "real monster" and isn't proud of it at all).
- doesn't want to "wind up dead" when he is working for Finch. No need for redemption.
- Accuses Finch about not trusting him, when he asks about the laptop. Would it have been different, if Finch had handled him differently? I doubt it.
Mr. Reese:
- wears a very earnest and very long coat with scarf, hair in government-operator style
- seems to be perfectly in line with his partner Kara, dark and cold stare, professional and no nonsense behaviour, highly efficient
- only follows orders, doesn't seem to care about the people he is killing
- is ready to kill Dillinger
- but doesn't like the torturing, that is when we first sense that he is different
- is asking questions about the mission opposed to Kara who doesn't care
....and then that last scene that turns everything around and opens the door for Mr. Reese to become the man in the suit.
This episode wraps up loose ends and opens doors at the same time
- We learn how Finch knew John, why he chose him and that he probably knew about him through Jessica, who was a number at the time this episode takes place, but not dead yet.
- We learn about the mysterious Ordos-laptop, what was on it and how it ended up in China, and so in the hands of Greer/Decima. Lambert is already in the game and very interested in the AI-thing - and hides his British accent. And Harold plants the virus that triggers the machine to it's independent action later (end of s. 2).
- Control already wants access to the machine. She is such a badass when Special Counsel dares to critize her about killing Nathan: "Nathan Ingram has outlived his usefulness and was dealt with accordingly." That is one hell of a thing to say and a thread to the other man. Who wants to work for Control? Probably only people like Shaw! And this matches exactly how Greer deals with Lambert: "Fail me again and I will find someone more adequate to the task."
- Harold and Casey have a good understanding about each other, they seem to relate and like each other.
- We even get a glimpse on Shaw in action, how her career started and how her way of handling things was appreciated by Control and Special Counsel. How could Finch ever trust her when he has seen before what a cold-blooded killer she is?
- And we learn about why Control ordered Kara's and John's death.
- That burial scene didn't make sense at all except than connecting it to the pilot where Fusco sets out to bury John and winds up burying Stills. (Why does Finch have a shovel in his car, how is he able to do it with his injuries and why do it at all because the police will certainly find Dillinger, it is Central Park!?!?)
- In the switchback to present time the plotline is picked up by Root who now is in need of brilliant hackers. That scene in Canada could have been handled a bit more realisticly but who cares?
Person of Interest: Endgame (2013)
Being alone vs. Asking for help
Some thoughts on a main motive of the show which is important in this episode:
All of our main team members were at one time in their life thrown into a situation of extreme loneliness: Finch after Nathan's death, John after he got betrayed by the CIA and learning about Jessica's death, same fate for Shaw after getting betrayed by Control and Cole's death and Root very early on when no one believed her after the kidnapping of her friend, she later run away from home and was on her own all her life. Nathan's little project of the irrelevant list gave them a new purpose and saved them.
For Carter, who is the main protagonist of this episode, it is vice versa: as a cop (like Fusco) she is used to working with a partner or in a team and her main purpose is acting according to the law (the rules) and so being a person of morality.
To understand her character we have to look back on her first main episode: Getting Carter (s. 1. ep. 9). The flashback there showed us her experience as an interrogator in Iraq. She is trying to play by the rules and being a decent human. But this doesn't work all the time. And here it is for the first time that someone tells her: You are all alone! - meaning the world around you isn't like that, it is bad.
During that episode we also hear Moretti in prison telling her the very same thing: he snears at her and asks for her backup and points out that she is acting alone.
We later hear Elias shouting the same thing to her in the episode Flesh and Blood when he tries to get through the steel door: "You are all alone and no one is coming to save you; Carter answers: "I am not as alone as you think". (then Reese saves Taylor while Fusco saves Carter)
The one person she is always coming back to is John. She has a special relationship to him (and the kiss in the next episode that so many disliked because he came "out of the blue" was a logical development for me).
John has his own special relationship to loneliness. We learned that in his airport flashbacks that were repeated several times because of their importance.
"In the end we're all alone, and no one is coming to save you". (Reese couldn't come for Jessica, but he will definitely come for Joss).
And so it is John who tells her in their first meeting after she gets shot by her CI: You are not alone!
The motive of being alone vs. asking for help is also reflected in the flashbacks to her former husband Paul, who rejected help after his problems of being a soldier and refusing help.
Cal Beecher's death has proven to her that she can no longer relay on the law, she starts her investigation into HR alone, because she knows how dangerous this is and she wants to protect her friends by it. Lasky's death throws her over the brink of her rules once and for all. Although she has to ask Shaw for "firepower" she doesn't bring her into the project and she rejects John's help because she doesn't want to kill Alonzo but get him arrested properly. John's help because of his shady background could endanger that.
But she starts a gang war and that is something very extreme for a cop like Carter. How far she has come shocks Harold and John when they find out.
We see her conflict when she tricks Fusco so that she can finish this alone, but still she trusts him with the backup of her material, which will consequently bring Fusco and his son into grave danger later. And she is not sure about asking for John's help, we see her NOT calling him (nice trick for the suspense).
What turns it around for her is her phonecall to her son Taylor who tells her: "Whatever you're doing you don't have to do it alone. Lots of people care about you. If you ever need any help, all you have to do is ask." (meaning: you are not alone, everyone is relevant to someone).
Even Alonso talks about her fight alone: "You see yourself as the protagonist in a tragedy determined to face the world alone". And then: "My fault I didn't kill you along with Cal so neither of you would have to die alone."
But she did call John offscreen and Finch monitors the endgame and even records Alonzo's confession. All hell breaks loose when John enters and than he and Carter are on the run with their captive and John's picture is out there for all the dirty cops. So Carter was right in her fear for the danger this would mean for her friends because now it is John's turn that his number will come up.
Person of Interest: The Devil's Share (2013)
The beauty of composition
This episode could have been a seasons ending because of how excellently it is put together. The writers Jonathan Nolan and Amanda Segel cared for every detail, nothing is accidently in it and the storytelling by sound, picture and acting is a complete one.
The introduction: This opening is completely without sound except the beeping of the heart monitor at the beginning and the voice of Johnny Cash's "Hurt". Hurt is in a physical sense what Reese is, but much more so in a psychological way for the whole team. Everything is silent after Carter's death and the voice of Johnny Cash carries us through the sequences: John on his bed, the burial with the mute salute shots, the look of pure grief on the faces of Finch, Shaw, Lionel and Paul and Taylor. But still only the music when the phone silently rings for Finch to give him Simmons number, Shaw beating up in silent rage someone for information, Simmons buying a passport. The way he turns around and the camera on his half-lit face has the same eery effect when later John turns around and walks away from the car wreck. To highten the eery atmosphere slow motion is used for the t-boning of the car, the questioning and the walking away. The look on John's face is one of the most impressing in the whole show.
But instead of going on with the story the machine rolls back in it's memory to four different interrogation scenes that structure the episode and make some much needed explanation on the four characters to tell us who they are and how they became what they are now.
1. Harold
Besides from the small detail that the actress who plays the counsellor for Harold is the same who plays later Elizabeth Bridges, we find Harold at a very important turning point of his life, shortly after he has lost Nathan and Grace. This is an insight to himself, his hybris. In fact the counsellor tells him in a different context: You are not god! This will be the change in Harold's life when he has to face the consequences of his building the machine and builds in his question that cannot be answered: "Does survivor's guilt ever goes away when everything that happened was actually your fault?"
The story goes on with Lionel, Harold and Shaw not trying to find Simmons but John who is badly hurt and they fear for his life. When they are out of options it is Shaw who brings Root in, who urges Harold to overcome his doubts about her. But who is Shaw really?
2. Shaw
We now learn that she was a doctor and her pragmatism, stoicism and lack of deeper feelings got her into trouble. The tale of her delivering a death notification to a family while eating a candy bar is so much Shaw, as we now know her, that it is silently funny. She now has to face who she is and what she can't be - a doctor - because her counsellor has figured it out: She obviously cannot see the difference between fixing and healing. He tells her that she is very gifted, has a brilliant mind and soon would get bored at the job. She is unfit to be a doctor.
In times of trouble the team comes together, just like in the episode ending of season two, now it is Fusco, Shaw, Root and Finch that are tracking down John. The story turns to Reese and what he is doing, but who is Reese?
3. John
The military interrogator tells John: You are soft! And John answers in a very soft voice: No sir. But the use of light and shadow tells us that this is not so. His face is lighted like a skull, a very eery shot that combines Reese with the image of death. The interrogator: "You are about to join men at the ragged edge to stop extremely bad things from happening." Which is a perfect description of his later job with Finch. "I am the last stop between you and the darkness that awaits you." This is a sentence that can be understood in many different ways: His awful job with the CIA, his getting lost after the betrayal or his actual death at the end of the show. It speaks for Caviezels acting ability that is mostly an understatement, but very effective. Just by leaning back in the chair the interview changes completely and now he is in charge. He has no problem in killing the traitor, giving him "the devil's share".
The action scene when John takes out the marshalls like a very desperate killing machine is again a show in light and shadows, the darkness after the electricity cut, the green light of the marshalls visors, the bright exploding light when the sticks are shot and then again the dark-red brooding light when John confronts Quinn. He knew that he was lost and told the marshall: "the man who is coming after me - your men won't be able to stop him." In his desperation he starts talking about "loyalty" - a pompous speech suiting the mobster that he really is. But it is all lost on Reese who knows what this is about. It is not loyalty but the regime of fear that HR was built on. "That is why you and I understand each other". The writer gave John here some very good lines - at last. Together with the blood streaming down his arm and the desperate look on his face this scene is as strong as possible. And the fear gets to Quinn, he gives Simmons up - just like that.
But still - revenge is not the answer. Carter wanted to tell John when she was dying: "Don't let this ...(change you)". That is exactly what Finch tells him - this is not what she wanted, but anyway, John would have killed Quinn (same as Shaw later in the last episode kills Root's murderer).
4. Lionel
Earlier Root has told us where his name is coming from - he is a "lion" in an allegorical sense - strong, fearless and unforgiving. And it is again Root's task to tell us that there is still someone to go after Simmons when the team decides it is more important now to save their friend. The interrogator of Lionel tries hard to break the shell after Lionel has killed someone in the line of duty. He is talking about PSA which just gets him a smirk of the very sarcastic pre-Carter-Fusco. When Lionel picks up the paper of Simmons location we all have to ask ourselves: Is Fusco a killer? Sure he is! That is what we learn of his interview and story of a cold-blooded shooting of a cop-killer. He is the first to introduce the term of what this episode is about: the devil's share.
But is he still like that? Simmons thinks so: "I always knew you were a killer!" But instead of shooting Simmons, he chooses to beat him up - same choice Reese made earlier in Razgovor. But we viewers have to fear for him when he raises his injured and banded hand - is he able to do it when even Reese had problems with it? But the rage is so strong that we get an awesome fight scene and Lionel showing us that Carter's morale was not lost on him. "She saved me from myself".
In the last scene at the hospital, another dialogue scene with someone looming in the shadows, we get the closure of this story. The takedown of Simmons was a team job: Reese tracked him down, Lionel arrested him and now it is Elias who is not letting him get away with all the bad stuff. His cold-smiling speech about what is civilization ("that we treat criminals better than they treated their victims") is just awesome in it's simplicity. He draws a clear line: the lost ones who are not reigned in by morality (which includes John and Shaw) and the civilized ones like Carter, Fusco and Finch. I like it that the camera doesn't rest on the strangling of Simmons, it is equally effective when we only see the heartline on the monitor rest. The heart monitor at the beginning and now in the end - a perfect frame, perfect ending of a perfect episode.
Berlin Station (2016)
Great show that gets it right
This text may contain spoilers. As a German viewer I enjoy this show very much. It is great to see the German actors alongside the American and British cast on an even level and it is really enjoyable for us here in Germany to watch both languages alongside (sorry for American viewers who have to read subtitles). This show gets it right mostly, the political topics are burning and yes - the far right movement is a much bigger problem than Islamic terror. American viewers might have a different view on that for all the alt-right propaganda going on but since the last election that moved the far right into the Bundestag the problem is real. In Berlin Station there a many subtle hints and points also to the American political situation that might not be agreeable to the viewers in the country. There are some small details that the writers got wrong f.e. Otto and Josef are no longer names for men in their fifties, the German leader of the alt-right party is Katerina Gerhard which would rather be Katharina in German. But the actress is the girl-friend of our Justice Minister which gives the story some irony. Sometimes the German men have mustaches (which is out-of-fashion here as much as in USA), and the American spy wears a base cap when he is secretly following someone in the streets which would be a big mistake because he would be recognized as American instantly.
I like all the acting, specially that of Rhys and of course Richard Armitage who already was a spy in the British show "Spooks" and an undercover agent in "Strike Back". His acting is subdued - according to his role but also with a lot of hold-back-emotion that sometimes shines through.
There is much to enjoy here - the scenery is great, it feels authentic and the plot is decent and without any false pathos, just downright realistic. If you enjoyed Nightmanager or Tinker- Taylor-Soldier-Spy this show might be for you.
Savannah (2013)
At the brink of modern age
This is how I understood the film without having read the book. I don't give a summary,that has been done by the other reviewers here, and yes, my review will contain spoilers.
The drama is told about and around the character Ward Allen, a locally renown and remembered local sort of hero. But why was he important and what was his meaning for those who have known him and remember him?
It seems, that he had a way to impress his follow men by his stubborn way of living in a romantic past, that was slowly slipping away and was glorified when he was long gone. The important factor here is "time" because clearly the 1920ies were a turning point, after WW1 and the great war to come that was sweeping away social classes and ways of living not only in Europe but also in America. The beginning of modern times is obvious, there are coaches and horses in the streets but also automobiles. In one scene Ward and Christmas look from their boat to the rising of an industrial building at the horizon and Ward says that the birds are not flying over it.
The story reminded me very much of Ford Madoxx Fords "Parades End", set in the time of WW1. The hero of that story, who was also a creature of a time long gone, was defined as the last gentlemen, because of his unfaltering upkeeping of a moral codex no longer important in a changing society.(Watch Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC miniseries)
The hero of Savannah on the other hand is not so much a gentlemen but a free spirit, a man who doesn't like to be "tamed", not by his family and upbringing, not by his wife and not by the society around him. But he stands no chance,time goes on and everything changes, his lifestyle with living outdoors and sustaining himself by hunting is no longer possible, and industrialization is on the horizon. That is child is stillborn can be a symbol. He has to take this strike of fate and then another and so on until he sees no way of going on and kills himself.
All that is told in a slow and melancholic way with the help of a frame story in the present. The omnipresent birds and the water carry highly symbolic meaning as the flow of time.
Many critics say that the three story lines are not told good enough, one should have concentrated on the friendship between the former slave and white man, that was his friend. But I don't think that is what this film is about, that is only a sideline. From that missunderstanding there might come the critic of using too many clichées,as someone accused the film on the messageboard. But those "clichées" are not what is important here. Ward had the ability to express himself by writing - he was not a writer in the usual sense of the word. Because of his upbringing and education he had the possibility to describe his confusion and the problems he had with the change of the older way of living to the modern age. He couldn't accept it and stayed therefore as a symbolic figure for the turmoil of that age, that many might have felt.
As mentioned in the other reviews the pictures and the filming are excellent and the cast did a very great job, mostly Jim Caviezel who proved that he can also play extrovert characters. His use of his voice and movements are highly entertaining to watch. This is not a film for the big audience but it should have gained more attention. One thing I didn't like so much was the score. The main theme of the music was nice and kind of hypnotizing, but it was used too much, should have varied more.