Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Tedfoldol
everything you have heard about this movie is true.
ChicDragon
It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
Aneesa Wardle
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
mrpmjones
Burnside is an old style CID copper made famous in hit crime series such as The Bill. Life on Mars come to mind but this is realism. Now working for the crime investigation squad, Burnside investigates when a gang of drug dealers start gun running. He also investigates a serial killer, again copied in new crime programs. The Russian Mafia also feature, all copied by lesser coppers! When a trial ends in disaster, Burnside and his team find themselves investigating a Gangland murder. When a group of women are killed one by one, Burnside and his team race against the clock to find the killer before he strikes again. Watch out for Ronnie "The Razor" Buchan, a former London gangster and Burnside's nemesis.Wonderful acting by Ellison as Burnside and good stories.Highly recommended good old fashioned crime stories.Tough anti hero .
StormSworder
For those of you don't know, Frank Burnside was a detective in the long-running police series "The Bill" and possibly its greatest ever character. Therefore it is a shame that this series, with him at the helm, was such a let-down. Back in the '80s and '90s, The Bill was noted for its fast-paced, realistic and involving story lines. What we have here is the complete opposite - a ridiculously movie-like over-glamorised show with over-length and long-drawn-out story lines. The first, involving a boy who takes revenge on his bullying peers, is admittedly entertaining, and it's a treat to see the return of Burnside with his ever-cynical manner. But overall this series is a might-have-been, has more in common with US cop shows than with the TV series of fond memories.
ed-627
I agree, this series was a disappointment. Chris should stick at what we know him best for.An attempt to capitalize on Burnside without Burnside... I mean who could have thought of that, an undoubtedly popular character that if returning today (13 years later) would be much like Hilda returning to Corry.Burnside needs to get back into "The Bill", after all, he MADE the show. After he left it sadly went downhill, not surprising given the strength of his character and charisma (can't believe I said that). Was it really 1993?
Theo Robertson
The best type of television cop is the fascist but fair cop . Jack Regan from THE SWEENEY and Frank Burnside from THE BILL are the personification of the fascist but fair cops as seen on British television , yes they beat confessions out of guilty men and occasionally blow away a bad guy but the bad guys were guilty in the first place so that makes it all right.THE BILL started to lose its impact after Burnside left the series and the show suffered from much lower ratings because of it , hell Burnside was THE BILL so the producers kept bringing him back every now and again . And being a sometimes avid watcher of THE BILL I was looking forward to seeing this " gritty " spin off show but felt it was a complete waste of time afterwardsThis series is called BURNSIDE but is a complete misnomer . It consists of six episodes of three 2 part stories but if you`re expecting them to revolve around Fascist Frank you will be in for a major disappointment since only the first story centres around him , the other two centre around his colleagues the very attractive Sam Philips who is far too pretty to be a convincing policewoman and Dave Summers who is a gay black policeman . Yup a gay black policeman and never once does Burnside come out with the obvious line " Don``t stand behind me you iron " . Not only that but for both of the latter two stories Burnside is off screen for much of the time , compare this with the amount of BILL episodes where he`s the focus of the story . And despite the post watershed screening time and the very occasional use of the " F " word by the villains there`s nothing memorable about the episodes and could have easily been written for any British television detective show
Any chance we`ll be seeing Frank back in THE BILL after this debacle ?