No. 354 : Who Is Erin Carter? (TV) (2023)

 

Who is Erin Carter at the IMDb

If you are going to give your TV series an interrogative title it would probably makes sense that you ensure that after enduring 7 episodes your audience is likely to give a shit; but I didn’t.

This by the numbers and cliché-ridden Netflix drama could be seen as a harmless pastime but the lazy writing and terrible acting made it feel like a complete waste of time.

The timeline of the series jumps around a bit but basically you have a woman living with her husband and child in Barcelona – but there are secrets! Things start to unravel when she stumbles upon a supermarket robbery and takes down one of the baddies who recognises her. We’re meant to be impressed by her fighting skills, but the bad guy goes down like he’s in the WWF and all our girl does is some high-level shoving. One robber escapes and Erin is worried her cover may be blown.

What cover you ask? Well, a long flashback shows her at police training college and quickly kicked out when she beats up an annoying fellow cadet. The predictable shady man from black ops invites her to join his division and within five minutes she’s infiltrated a gang and helping with a bullion robbery. You’d think someone with more that a week at training college would be a better option, but a quick training montage puts that concern to bed.

The robbery goes tits up with one woman bank robber seemingly getting killed leaving her annoying daughter at a loose end. Erin confirms her recruitment was a total arse up when she flees to Spain with the child and sets up a new life.

Unfortunately, the supermarket robbers, who wear the same animal masks as at the bullion robbery – they must have gotten a job lot, - know Erin was the rat in the crew and soon the mysterious ‘Mr Big’ is after her.

Fortunately, Erin has a gullible husband and a helper in the shape of Emilio, who is a cop and who is happy to get involved in Erin’s manipulative schemes. Elsewhere a local bitch is making Erin’s school teacher ambitions difficult, but fortunately local businessman Duggie Henshall is on hand to exert some influence. I don’t think Henshall ever got over being outsmarted by Supercrew in ‘Common as Muck’ as he’s absolutely dreadful here. He looks like someone reading lines in a language he doesn’t understand who’s also late for a dental appointment. It gets worse when you get the predictable big reveal!

The meagre plot is spread wafer thin over the 7 episodes with the annoying daughter’s visions and drawings of people in animal masks and her behavioural issues being a complete bore. You do get the lovely Susannah Fielding from ‘This Time’ – A-ha – but she is given precious little to do apart from being a busy body at Erin's school. 

The whole farrago is meant to be like a female Jason Bourne with our heroine displaying mad skills – in truth the fighting and action are very poor and lacks the visceral punch of those movies. There is one decent car crash, but you can tell the budget went on that as the flashback sequences in ‘England’ show a sun baked paradise where they forgot to put down road markings – a bit like Barcelona really!

Evan Amhad does OK in the lead with poor material, but she didn’t convince whatsoever as a pocket dynamo superspy with multiple layers and a complicated past. She is better than her husband Jordi however, who looks like he wandered onto set looking for a lost dog.

The whole production seems by the numbers with no doubt a Spanish language version shot at the same time. There are a lot of subtitled sequences and it looks like an international audience was the plan from the start. I’m sure this made fiscal sense for the bean counters at Netflix but the result is an unsatisfying offering that will doubtlessly play equally bad in all markets.

The finale was unsatisfying, not least because it suggests a sequel may be in the works. If you want a Lady Bourne straight from Wish.com this may be the offering that you seek, but otherwise I’d suggest the answer to the question posted by the title is ‘couldn’t care less’.

Best Bit: The police car chase was ridiculous but a good smash up at the end.

‘W’ Rating: 9/23

No.182 : Welcome to the Punch (2013)

Welcome to the Punch at the IMDb

Another page from Alan Partridge’s book of ‘Bad Slags’ now as we pick through this British cops v robbers action and swearing fest.

The film opens with a daring bank raid. It’s daring because all the bad guys are wearing suits and escape as a motorcycle formation team. The only cop in town is James McAvoy who has a shiny car and no back up. He’s ordered not to pursue but we know he’s reckless, er a maverick, from the off as he disregards the stuffed shirts at HQ and goes after the bad guys. Clearly Health and Safety called this one right as after a minor kafuffle McAvoy is shot in the leg and the bad guys get away.

We fast forward a couple of years and, although still a cop, McAvoy is bitter and forced to syringe out fluid from his still painful leg wound. He’s still bitching at his superiors, one of whom is that annoying one out of all these type of films and the other the Governor out of ‘The Walking Dead’ who has political ambitions. We learn that the leader of the robbers was Jacob Sternwood who not only has a tough name, he’s tough as well.

The bad man has gone to ground but the cops fancy their chances of a collar when they pick up Sternwood’s son on an unrelated offence. What follows is a predictable game of cat and mouse as the gangster heads back to the smoke to rescue his kid while McAvoy tries to remember to limp and look tough despite a weak beard.

This film wasn’t as terrible as I anticipated but it was still pretty poor. Of course it’s easy to pick nits, so let’s do that then.

McAvoy may now have the leading man status to open a film but he didn’t convince as the haunted copper with a score to settle. He may have been shown a couple of gun drills but his running about and swearing while offering his piece was more laughable than threatening. Better was Mark Strong as the villain but he’s had plenty of practice -  see ‘The Guard’ ‘Kick-Ass’ etc. He certainly topped McAvoy in the acting stakes but even he floundered with some hokey dialogue and ridiculous plot twists.

Down the list you also get Peter Mullen doing what he does and a disinterested David Thewlis as the aspirational politician who’s plan to shoot up London to win votes and lucrative contracts was ill conceived at best. The lead lady was a bit plain and her habit of writing stuff on her hands had her fate signalled from the off - guess where the killer clue is found?

The story was overly complicated and too reliant of coincidence and lucky timing. At the end McAvoy has a long speech where he explains the plot along with flashbacks and I was still a bit puzzled. Some of it didn’t even make sense - Britain’s most wanted escapes from his Icelandic lair, kills plenty, and then jets straight into the heart of London without a second glance. He also manages to meet all his old contacts and wanders in and out of various crimes scenes with no questions asked.

The big showdown where the two arch enemies forge an uneasy alliance was so much horse shit, but at least it did let a few extras get shot up. The production was quite lavish for a British film but it had so many ‘London at Night’ establishing shots you’d think the whole thing was bankrolled by the tourist board - well maybe if every person in Britain wasn’t shown as a total murdering psycho you might.

Overall the film was like a lavish episode of ‘The Sweeney’ and it was certainly better than the recent remake film of that series. Part of the fun is spotting all the actors they found sitting about in the Garrick Club and shoved on screen for five minutes. The violence was moderate with nothing too graphic despite ten million bullets being shot off in the name of entertainment. Worth a look but only a passing one as you skip past it on Channel 5 in a couple of years time.

W Score 12/23  Best Bit - Storage wars Writ Large

No.168 : We Own the Night (2007)

We Own the Night on IMDb

It’s 1988 in New York and things are going well for club manager Joaquin Phoenix. He has girlfriend Eva Mendes getting frisky on the sofa and all the drugs his bloated frame can manage. We soon learn that he is in the employ of the Russians and as anyone who has ever seen a film knows, they must be up to some bad shit. He knocks off work early so that he and Eva can attend a police function in a church basement, a strange affair that keeps the same hours as a hot disco.

Joaquin’s brother, Marky Mark, and Father, Robert Duvall are high ranking cops and they are concerned at our hero’s erratic behaviour and the company he is keeping. The Russians are dealing drugs out of Joaquin’s club and they’d like him to do some snitching for them. The lounge lizard club boss is having none of it but reconsiders when Marky Mark narrowly escapes the attentions of an incompetent hit man.

The bad company Joaquin keeps don’t know of his family connections as he changed his Polish name to ‘Green’ to fit in. This oversight leads them to spill far too many details of their plans to control the drug trade and put a cap in the ass of poor old Robert Duvall.

With this new motivation Joaquin decides to turn squealer and infiltrates the mob’s drug factory, which is frankly rubbish next to the one in ‘Robo-Cop‘. As you’d expect the main bad guy escapes and turns his attentions, quite understandably, on Joaquin and Eva who foolishly stood by her man and indeed took the part.

With the claret flying we learn about a big drug deal going down - if only some implausible bit of deduction can lead them to the remote meeting place where they can wrap up everything neatly and just in time.

This was an OK film but nothing you haven’t seen loads of times before. A kind of low-rent ‘The Departed’ for slow people. The main issue is hanging the whole film on the acting talents of Joaquin, which must have taken some doing as they are hard to spot. His broody silences look like he’s waiting to be given his lines and his manic shouty outbursts just look ridiculous. He does get some quality time with Eva Mendes, who serves as little more than eye-candy, but I guess that’s the benefit of having a producer credit.

Marky Mark is well short of his ‘The Departed’ showing especially at the end where he takes a sudden and unheralded character twist that sets up Joaquin to be the hero. Duvall does what you’d expect but you see no chemistry at all in the family trio.

The bad guy Russians are your stereotyped tattooed psychos but exuded very little menace, even in the supposedly tense ‘wearing a wire’ scene. The action, as it was, was weak with a confusing and poorly orchestrated car chase that had me wondering what was happening. The big shoot out at the end was a damp squib and it beggared belief  the cops shouted out their appearance giving the Russians the time to tool up and flee from the rear windows.

You can see what they were going for here but the whole good son, bad son routine failed to ignite as did Joaquin’s redemption - he looked like he was having a far better time at the start! I did laugh when the police chief made Joaquin a probationary cop for the big raid and said ‘After this you’ll need to go to the Police Academy’. At last a vehicle worthy of his talents! - hope he rooms with the guy who makes computer noises!

Best Bit - Hey Eva that sofa hasn’t been Scotch guarded!
Score : 14/23