Cracker: Cracker [2006]

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Customer reviews

review by: whutchin2 date: 2008-10-23 rating:
Appalling soundtrack that negates the story
This could have been such a good programme but the screaming high pitch noises that make up the soundtrack are appalling - I should think anyone with a dog would have problems. The sound engineer must have spent a life at `rages' and listening to heavy metal music because the over-bearing an screeching sounds hurt the ears and totally distract from the story. I am very annoyed about it as this `Cracker', whilst not having the level of story line and characters of earlier episodes, could have been really good. Unfortunately, it has been cheapened by the soundtrack.

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review by: zenkady date: 2007-11-03 rating:
Cracked
What a shame. Less like Cracker as was known and loved throughout the 90's, more like ageing rock stars revisiting former glory days, their old energy and vitality no longer there. Where once characters we cared about drove the action, here the central characters barely feature. Where acute, social observation once feed plot and characters, both are now eclipsed by lecturing, social sound bytes. Americans, Terrorism and 9/11 feature heavy handedly in this uninspired tale of a former British soldier turned killer. Notable stalwarts like Penhaligan and Wise no longer feature (nor is there any credible backstory to account for the past ten years) and their replacements are one dimensional, cardboard cut-outs barely registering cameo appearances. Into this mix Robbie Coltrane tries to inject something credible but, given little to work with, fails to deliver except on rare moments, which only serve to remind how good this show really was and how bad this spin off is. Not his fault. Jimmy McGoverns uncharacteristically substandard script and Antonia Birds shambolic direction must take much of the blame.

This episode ends as if to be continued. Whilst answers to many questions in the Cracker canon are still eagerly sought (what happened to Penhaligon, etc.) on the evidence of this it would be better not to know than to have the Cracker experience further tarnished with another sub standard offering.

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review by: date: 2007-10-18 rating:
Polarized
I am surprised to see these reviews are either full of gushing praise or somber dissapointment. This most recent Movie IMO is not bad and as good as anything else on television right now. It ranks up there with your typical Sopranos episode (good for t.v.).

Is it the best Cracker episode? not by a long shot, interesting story, real sense of emotion as fitz travels through his old haunts, quite good melodrama. Cracker at it's best always lays on the drama pretty thick without being self-concious or preachy, this latest installment continues in that vein.

I watched the entire series recently (not having seen it since back in the day), including "white ghost" which I somehow missed before and man that was a lousy, lousy episode, just horrible. So, I wasn't expecting much of this new movie and it was a pleasant surprise. However, if they do another series or one off movie it needs to tie up the relationship between "Fitz" and "Panhandle" IMO.

Panhandle's absence from "White Ghost" was almost un-bearable and the story really suffered for it. Her absence wasn't as obvious in this latest effort but as far as I'm concerned Fitz/Panhandle need to both be presant if they are going to do anymore stories.

Cheers.

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review by: date: 2007-09-23 rating:
Let sleeping dogs lie!
There is a saying that you can never go back and sadly this is very true of this Cracker. It was a huge disappointment. I think that the biggest problem was that this came across as a personal viewpoint on current political situations - it seems that the story was written around this or written to back up this viewpoint. I felt as if I have been conned in buying this. What a thing to do to Cracker! I am going to try to forget this feature and remember him in his glory days. RIP, Cracker and let this be a warning to others!


review by: date: 2007-07-30 rating:
Not Cracker. Not as I remember it, anyway.
I was inspired to write this review after reading the previous commentator's gushing nonsense, in the attempt - I suppose - to add a little perspective to this whole ITV shambles of a once fantastic series. The original three series run of Cracker from 1993 to 1995 were exceptional stuff, dented only by the bloodless 1996 "special", White Ghost, which saw Fitz take on a clichéd murder case in surprisingly subdued Hong Kong. The loss of Jimmy McGovern after the third season high-point Brotherly Love also saw the series fall into a kind of self parody, somewhat re-hashing the plot of second episode To Say I Love You for the penultimate episode Best Boys, or ripping off a Fatal Attraction style situation for the final episode True Romance (though, to be honest, the final confrontation here between Fitz and his suspect was absolutely perfect in its execution).

Now we have the return of Cracker; with the filmmakers exploiting the new look Manchester following the IRA terrorist bombing of 1996, and developing the thread of a plotline in which Fitz has to reacclimatise to the city following a 7 year hiatus spent living in Australia. The real reason Fitz is back in Manchester is to attend the wedding of his daughter and to spend some time with his grand kids. However, all of these character elements are quickly dropped when a disgruntled squaddie murders a young American in a nightclub toilet. For what seems like no reason at all, Fitz is brought in by the Manchester police to offer some expert perspective (despite the fact that they've already told him he won't be allowed to talk to the victims, the witnesses or the suspects), and soon decides (again, with very little evidence) that the suspect is a police officer (he also works out which police officer it is in the time it would usually take to make a cup of tea). When a second American is killed in his home, it becomes clear that the former squaddie has a serious political agenda liked specifically to the war in Iraq, and the current political world climate post 9/11.

What follows is some serious brick-batting around the issues of terrorism, as the story finds itself punctuated by news reports, conversations and stock footage that play out in some kind giddy, over excited parody of an Oliver Stone film that I personally found to be obvious and highly distracting. Fitz is a shadow of his former self here, given no time to develop his character or even build on the usual characteristics we've seen before. Worse still are the relationships between Fitz and his family - which are essentially non-existence - with his wife (played by a surprisingly aged Barbara Flynn) and now adult son (Kieran O'Brien, last seen as art-house porn drama 9 Songs) popping up in the background a few times before we cut to another piece of ITN stock footage or a needless Belfast-based flashback (probably best if I don't elaborate, so as not to deter from the plot).

This time around, there is no relationship between Fitz and the police. Admittedly, most of the key characters from the series couldn't come back (watch the original series and you'll find out why), but the lack of real involvement here is a major problem, and stretches the realism of the drama significantly. The magic of Cracker was always the subtle blending of police drama, soap opera and psychological thriller, but these have been toned down or removed completely for this twenty-first century up-date. The scrip shows how much McGovern has lost it as a writer, picking up where turgid BBC serial The Street left off with its lifeless characters, clichéd stories and obvious use of subject. Added to this, we also have the needlessly trendy direction from Antonia Bird (Priest, Face, Ravenous), which also included the ugly new title sequence and up-tempo dance-orientated soundtrack from New Order off-shoot The Other Two. The staging seems desperate, like an old man dancing to a Prodigy track at his daughter's wedding. The series didn't need this...

The thing I always loved about Cracker was its no-nonsense seriousness, and the refusal to follow contemporary trends. The direction was usually on a par with European art-house, in my opinion, with a great use of close-ups, fantastic framing, naturalistic lighting and the ability to create drama and tension without having to shake the camera around. Russell Clarke's self-satisfied twittering claims that Cracker "takes a sideswipe at the world's moral vacuum", but really, when we compare it to past episodes like To Be a Somebody and Brother Love, it's really nothing more than the self-righteous ravings of a miserable old man having a moan from the comfort of their armchair. Some of the details might be there, but ultimately this is Cracker-lite... a poor man's re-tread of one of the best dramas of the 90's, only with the drama replaced by screaming polemic. We expect more from Cracker, and certainly more from McGovern. Sadly, it seems those days are over.

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