Reviews

An intriguing and powerful series, but seriously flawed by its concept. The writer evidently intended it to be an exposition of racial bias in America, but the entire case was actually about police corruption - a quite different matter, whatever the police thought about blacks. This made the whole final court case quite illogical. Furthermore there were far too many scenes depicting the weeping, grieving mother, one after another, and none of them progressing the story. So by the final episodes we were so sick of seeing her woeful face that sympathy for her was lost (and the father not far behind). A worthy attempt but seriously defective.

The first half is gripping - a family going through a difficult time with no hint as to the outcome. But then the whole thing descends into a quasi-religious, pseudo-supernatural mess with no logic or reason. Don't waste your time.

What is so disappointing is that the scene is set up to be quite intriguing, with two vulnerable children trapped in an isolated house with a woman they resent but who is trying to win their trust. But then the whole things starts to disintegrate when strange things happen with no introduction and in complete contrast to the realism that has gone before. And when it descends into pure horror coupled with some sort of religious obsession then it lost this viewer completely.

Beautifully filmed and acted, as always with Scorcese, but ruined by a rambling, unfocused, incoherent script that was presumably supposed to give a more in depth picture of the clash of two cultures than the usual cowboys and injuns stuff, but was an hour too long and so full of disconnected scenes and irrelevant secondary characters that the story got lost amongst the maze of bewildering plotlines.

Furthermore there seems to be a confusion of character in that the two male leads are portrayed as basically sympathetic men struggling with their own demons, but emerge in fact as cold-blooded ruthless killers with no real redeeming features!

Great chance squandered. Intriguing premise, good actors, but like so many French films dissolved into yawn-provoking and meandering storyline, irrelevant sidetracks, undeveloped dramatic situations. When will the French learn to actually tell a STORY??

Beautiful locations and good performances. Spoilt by second rate script. Motives unexplained, dramatic moments undeveloped, irrelevant scenes interjected. What a pity.

Terrible waste of a good subject. An enigmatic character at the heart of one of the most controversial American eras. Yet instead of a deep character drama we get a documentary littered with the dreaded voice-overs which explain everything rather than SHOW it, and interrupted by constant irrelevant video clips. Proves yet again the inadvisability of having a writer/director with no-one to give an objective editor's opinion.