Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU Vicious, disgusting, more than gory, just gross, and yet so true to "life" if this is life. It sure is Yorkshire, accent, desolation and misery (more than plain and simple poverty), cruelty, pollution, greed, vice, perversion, etc. spread all over. All evils in one pouch, one bag in West Yorkshire and the motto that "this is the north, where we do what we want," that's the great beauty of ugliness.It will take you three long episodes to reach the culprit and you won't be surprised at all when you finally come to him. In the meantime the police would have revealed itself the most odious, ferocious and mentally cannibalistic institution you can imagine. Asking a question for them is necessarily hurting, torturing and a few other things of the sort: breaking fingers, crushing burning cigarettes anywhere you can imagine, stripping the suspects naked, and the films do not show them naked (prudes!). There is not one single person in the police force that is able to do anything regular like find a culprit that is really guilty and bring that one to justice. One journalist is driven to craziness and some deadly justice enforcing spree, and yet you will know if he was right in his choice of targets at the end of the third film. Another young man, slightly spaced out will be convinced under duress by everyone, probably only in the police, that he killed the girl. And he will end his life in prison. With little chance to be retried since he signed a confession and pleaded guilty.And quite a few are questioned that way and yet the crimes are going on: kidnapped girls, then raped, and in many ways cut up and carved up and more or less endowed with wings and feathers. And all that in a society that is rotten to the core, that speculates on the death of as many people as possible with pollution and the exploitation of them as long as they live with projects that are as crazy as they are greedy of shopping malls with cinemas and all kinds of entertainments to empty the billfolds of the gullible submissive slaves of the public till they are empty and they can then commit suicide or die young of any kind of hazardous escaping tentative or industrial pollution. And for the girls and women prostitution and promiscuity are the main two udders of everyday suspended death. You can imagine what the other two are.And be sure that all the cadres of the police and the most respected people in this society, lay and clerical, are among the small circle of speculators and their only aim is to make money and thus to keep the surrounding society going because you cannot squeeze money out of marginal miserable derelict and impoverished proletariat. No matter what, they must have just a little bit more than their basic needs to be able to spend that little bit more in the traps of the entertaining plotters.Is it a great trilogy? I do not know but one thing is sure even if at the end the killer is finally put out of the way all the corrupted elite of this part of Yorkshire will not be in any way even questioned, not to speak of prosecuted. After all corruption is the basic human dimension: the survival instinct of the more corrupted declared the fitter, by all means, even selling their parents into slavery and feeding their own children to the industrial sharks of our certainly not post-modern society but definitely pre-modern jungle.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

NateWatchesCoolMovies The Red Riding Trilogy is one of the most dense, absolutely impenetrable pieces of work I've ever seen, let alone attempted to dissect with my clunky writing skills. It's also fairly horrifying, as it chronicles the tale of the Yorkshire Ripper, an elusive and mysterious serial child killer who terrorized this area of Britain through the late 70's and early 80's. Viler still are the strong implications that very powerful people, including the brass of the West Yorkshire police, made every disgusting attempt to cover up the crimes and protect the killer, who's murders included that of children. It's a brave move by UK's Channel 4 to openly make such notions obvious within their story, and commendable the level of patience, skill and strong ambition in the undertaking is quite the payoff, whilst simultaneously taking a toll on you for sitting through it. The sheer scope of it must be noted; it's separated into three feature length films, each vastly different in setting, character and tone, and each blessed with a different director. The filmmakers even went as far as to film the first, which is set in 1974, in 16mm, the second in 35mm being set in 1980 and the third makes a leap to high definition video and takes place in 1983. Such a progression of time is a dismal reflection of the sticky corruption which clings to societies, decaying them stealthily over years, and the few keen individuals who will not let the truth die as long as there is a glimmer of uncertainty. Now, if you asked me exactly what happens over the course of this trilogy, who is who, what has happened to which characters and who is guilty, I simply wouldn't be able to tell you. It's a deliberately fractured narrative told through the prism of dishonest, corrupt psyches and has no use for chronology either. Characters who you saw die in the first film show up in the subsequent ones, actors replace each other in certain roles, and there's just such a thick atmosphere of confusion and despair that in the 302 minute running time I was not able to make complete sense. I think this is a great tactic to help you realize that the film means to show the futile, cyclical nature of reality, as opposed to a traditionally structured story with a clear cut conclusion. Events spiral into each other with little rhyme or reason, until we feel somewhat lost, knowing full well that terrible events are unfolding in front of our eyes, events that are clouded and just out of our comprehensive grasp in a way that unsettles you and makes you feel as helpless as the few decent people trying to solve the case. One such person is an investigative reporter searching for the truth in the first film, played by Andrew Garfield. He stumbles dangerously close to answers which are promptly yanked away by the sinister forces of the Yorkshire police, brutalized and intimidated into submission. He comes close though, finding a lead in suspiciously sleazy real estate tycoon Sean Bean, who's clearly got ties to whatever is really going on. The level of willful corruption demonstrated by the police is sickening. "To the North, where we do what we want" bellows a chief, toasting dark secrets to a roomful of cop comrades who are no doubt just as involved as him. The kind of blunt, uncaring dedication to evil is the only way to explain such behaviour, because in the end it's their choice and they know what they're doing. Were these officers as vile as the film depicts in the real life incidents? Someone seems to think so. Who's to know? Probably no one ever at this point, a dreadful feeling which perpetuates the themes of hopelessness. The second film follows a nasty Police Chief (David Morrissey) who is bothered by old facts re emerging and seems to have a crisis of conscience. Or does he? The clichéd cinematic logline "no one is what they seem" has never been more pertinent than in these three films. It's gets to a point where you actually are anticipating every single person on screen to have some buried evil that will get upturned. A priest (Peter Mullan is superb) shows up in the second film only to be involved in dark turns of the third. Sean Bean's character and his legacy hover over everything like a black cloud. A mentally challenged young man is held for years under suspicion of being the Ripper. A disturbed abuse survivor (wild eyed Robert Sheehan) seeks retribution. A Scotland Yard Detective (Paddy Considine) nobly reaches for truth. Many other characters have conundrums of roles to play in a titanic cast that includes Cara Seymour, Mark Addy, Sean Harris, James Fox, Eddie Marsan, Shaun Dooley, Joseph Mawle and more. The process in which the story unfolds is almost Fincher - esque in its meticulous assembly, each character and plot turn a cog in a vast machine whose purpouse and ultimate function are indeed hard to grasp. I need to sit down and watch it at least two more times through before the cogs turn in a way that begins to make sense to me, and a measurable story unfolds. It's dark, dark stuff though, presenting humanity at its absolute worst, and in huge quantities too, nightmarish acts that go to huge levels of effort just to produce evil for.. well, it seems just for evil's sake, really. The cast and filmmakers craft wonderful work though, and despite the blackness there is a macabre, almost poetic allure to it, beauty in terror so to speak. It's rough, it's long, it's dense and it thoroughly bucks many a cinematic trend that let's you reside in your perceptive comfort zone, beckoning you forth with extreme narrative challenge, an unflinching gaze into the abyss no promise of catharsis at the end of the tunnel. There's nothing quite like it, I promise you.

A_Different_Drummer When Clint Eastwood's first Italian Western made news in the 60s, the critics were falling over themselves to call the character an "anti-hero," but in truth it was not. In that film, the fact that the main character did not have a name, and, moreover, was a bounty hunter by trade who just happened to set things right along the way, all this was persuasive evidence, to some, that this was an anti-hero. But no, Eastwood's character was simply someone with no name and an unpopular job. Here, ladies and gents, we have the real thing. Garfield's completely unlikable (some would say stupid, some would say annoying) character writ large against the backdrop of one of the most uncomfortable parts of the UK, is the real deal. The astonishing thing about this film is that, if you make it to the end, you will wonder why you did, since there is no little about it that is entertaining by traditional standards. Here is a true anti-hero because, while he makes the noise of a hero, he never quite gets anything right, except maybe the ending, and even that is debatable. Garfield is good. Rebecca Hall is great. Sean Bean plays himself.

Saad Khan RED RIDING: IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1974 – CATCH IT ( B+ ) The Red Riding Trilogy caught my attention Once I heard about Andrew Garfield signed on to play Peter Parker in SpiderMan-Reboot. Red Riding is a mixture of the real events collaborating into factual events but nonetheless it's really enjoyable with all its creepiness. The movie starts off as young girls getting kidnapped and brutally murdered and it end up becoming more than just a Kidnapping, Murder mystery; it becomes more of a political Bonanza. Andrew Garfield is a Phenomena; I'm just amazed how ease and brilliant he is as an actor. You see an average looking geeky guy and when he acts he blows you away. I first saw him in "Boy A" and was literally stunned by his honest portrayal, it was just outstanding. Then I saw his comic timing in "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" which was another exciting experience. Now since he is making big waves through trailers of "Never Let Me Go" and "The Social Network", it was my pleasure to watch his gritty & Cookie side in "RED RIDING: IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1974", Andrew blew me away with his cockiness, grittiness and wickedness. Rebecca Hall is picture perfect yet again, she may not have a star power but nonetheless she is one of the talented British actresses around. Sean Bean & Robert Sheehan did a fine job. Overall a gritty and wicked movie which at times becomes too much to digest but maybe the novel was as complex as the movie was, a good attempt so I be watching the next two movies in Red Riding Trilogy as well, but sadly it doesn't have Andrew Garfield.