Tag: 2

Nobody Wants This (2024)

Where to find it: Netflix
Length: Ten 30-minute episodes
Synopsis: I certainly didn’t
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: easygoing
What I don’t like about it: irritating, cartoonish, pointless

Review:
One of my favourite tropes in Jewish comedy is that of the overzealous convert. Someone, usually from a WASPy background and converting for love, who is annoyingly keen to demonstrate their newfound knowledge of Judaism and far too eager to joke about stereotypes. Unfortunately, this show was created by such a person and she’s not self-aware enough to make it funny.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sex, swearing

The Day of the Jackal (2024)

Where to find it: NowTV
Length: Ten 50-minute episodes
Synopsis: Unstoppable killer has an inflated stunt budget and lazy writers
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: acting, very occasionally tense or thoughtful
What I don’t like about it: no likeable characters, no stakes, no plausibility, terrible alt-rock soundtrack

Review:
Eddie Redmayne plays a sniper assassin being chased across Europe by MI6 while trying to kill a crypto-bro because his new app is going to make rich people poorer… somehow… don’t examine it too closely.

It’s no more than every other piece of spy fiction thrown into a blender; dry procedure from le Carré, torture porn from 24, pumped-up action from the Bourne flicks, murky amorality from modern Bond. Any early tension dissipates quick as you realise the Jackal’s plot armour prevents actual stakes. Still could be interesting to watch the opsec of this ‘unrivalled assassin’, except his consistency disappears as the writers attempt to make him relatable or possibly redeemable, either way it fails. It’s garbage, I’m sure it will be very popular.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence

Disclaimer (2024)

Where to find it: Apple TV+
Length: Seven 50-minute episodes
Synopsis: An emotive drama about the grey area between truth and lies
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: themes, acting, direction
What I don’t like about it: grim, belabours its point

Review:
The latest Alfonso Cuarón project explores the impact of narratives and of true stories’ obfuscation of truth. An upper-middle-class Londoner’s precarious marriage is overturned by a vengeful storyteller armed with an old secret. Like Netflix’s Ripley, it has good acting and great directing (if you like shots of the sunset) but its tiresome pretension and meandering pointlessness make it hard to recommend.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sex (too much), death by drowning, bereavement, protracted sexual assault in final episode

Inside Our Autistic Minds (2023)

Where to find it: BBC iPlayer
Length: Two 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: Autistic mission doc
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: autistic people
What I don’t like about it: not very informative, self-important host, inspiration porn

Review:
Chris Packham hosts this BBC documentary in which he meets four autistic people and helps them make a short film about their perspective, which they then show to their friends and family. Despite many encouragements to understand autistic people, it doesn’t do a great job of explaining us, preferring ambiguous statements about how we’re all different. Occasionally hilarious, such as using VFX to show autism as some kind of Iron Man-esque superpower, but more often manipulatively ‘uplifting’ or uncomfortably intrusive.

Mostly, the show and its host seem to have a higher evaluation of their importance than I do and spend most of the time talking down to the audience, assuming they will have many negative impressions of autistic people. Thankfully Packham, patron(ising) saint of autism, is here to realise for us that people who don’t speak are still people.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

A Spy Among Friends (2022)

Where to find it: itvX
Length: Six 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: Boring historical fiction about the Cambridge Five
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: occasional intriguing conversations, acting
What I don’t like about it: no plot, no pace, no interest

Review:
Like le Carré on sedatives, this imagining of historical MI5 investigations into Kim Philby starts out lost in the weeds and only gets less interesting as it goes. Damien Lewis and Guy Pearce are good but not good enough to carry six hours of slow British spy mystery.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, explosion

The Patient (2022)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Ten 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: A psychotherapist is held hostage by a serial killer who demands to be cured
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: short episodes, good acting
What I don’t like about it: it’s bad in just about every way, never delivers on its premise

Review:
A grieving therapist (Steve Carell) is visited by a new patient (Domhnall Gleeson) who soon chains him up in his basement. The worst thing is it isn’t even psychologically interesting. It could have been better without the kidnapping; that kind of killed their ability to get any actual therapy done.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, the holocaust

Luther: The Fallen Sun (2023)

Where to find it: Netflix
Length: 130 minutes
Synopsis: DCI Luther returns for a sub-Bond adventure
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: Elba, Serkis hamming it up
What I don’t like about it: disgusting, chewy dialogue, flimsy plot, risible fight scenes, obvious product placement

Review:
Idris Elba returns as gritty London cop John Loofah in a pointless big screen(ish) outing and seemingly a favour to hack writer Neil Cross. In the first half-hour, Luther is sent to prison by this week’s villain (Andy Serkis), then quickly broken out and sent on Serkis’ trail.

This show has always been an odd mix of grim and cheesy and both elements are turned up to 11 in this. It revels in human misery and violence, with the edgiest and most unrealistic villains imaginable. If you want to feel sick and like you can’t stop laughing at the same time, you might like it.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence including sexual, cop worship

Irma Vep (2022)

Where to find it: NowTV
Length: Eight 1-hour episodes
Synopsis: TV show based on a movie about making a movie based on a movie
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: good scenes, satire
What I don’t like about it: unbearably pretentious and mumbly

Review:
In this meta-mess, Alicia Vikander plays a Hollywood actor filming a passion project, a remake of Les Vampires by Louis Feuillade. The show gives behind-the-scenes satire, restored footage of the original serial and modern remakes of key scenes in each episode. Not bad by any means but very slow and ultimately pointless.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): sex, drugs, violence

Dark Winds (2022)

Where to find it: No UK streaming
Length: Six 50-minute episodes
Synopsis: Native American crime drama
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: compelling start, good acting and setting
What I don’t like about it: bad story, loses steam, confusing timeline

Review:
In the 1970s, Navajo Tribal Police chief Joe Leaphorn investigates a brutal double murder which may be linked to witchcraft. He has a new deputy, Jim Chee, who is an FBI plant investigating a bank robbery years earlier which may be linked to Leaphorn and the nation. Squanders its early interest by not developing much character and killing off mysteries with anti-climax.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): violence, racism

Somewhere Boy (2022)

Where to find it: All 4
Length: Eight 25-minute episodes
Synopsis: Mawkish miniseries
Recommendation rating: 2/5

What I like about it: good acting, Yorkshire setting
What I don’t like about it: inspiration porn bullshit

Review:
A neurodivergent kid, raised in isolation by his mentally-ill father, is forced to finally leave the house which has been his only surrounding after his father swallows a shotgun. He moves in with distant family and, as they’re trapped by an oppressive normality and world-weariness, his childlike oddity proves inspirational to them. I really didn’t appreciate it but the neurotypicals say it’s “uplifting”.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): suicide, hit-and-run, sex