'Sacred Games' – Netflix

The hero of Netflix’s first Indian drama is Sartaj Singh (played by Saif Ali Khan) who cuts a rather lonely figure. He’s a honest and honorable detective who refuses to be intimidated by his corrupt colleagues in Mumbai’s police force. Probably because he refuses to tow the line he’s never landed a big case. He’s trapped in a corrupt system with no way out. In good cop show style, he’s unhappily divorced, scarred, gaining weight and taking medication for anxiety. No wonder as he’s under immense pressure from his station chief to lie under oath about a unarmed teenager shot down right in front of him.
This seems like more than enough to be dealing with, but no. Right from the outset Sacred Games is a game to be played by two. His opponent is Ganesh Gaitonde (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a notorious gangster and a fugitive in hiding for 15 years. He makes contact with Sartaj out of the blue seemingly to spill his guts about his extraordinary life.  He also has a cryptic warning. Mubai’s time is numbered – there’s 25 days until the whole city is destroyed. Is he threatening the city both men say they love or is he tipping Sartaj off in the hope of saving them all? His personal god complex is clear; his first words to Sartaj are “Do you believe in God?”, but after all he’s been through he thinks he might really be immortal. And the way the show sets him up, he really could be.
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A view from The Bridge

Spoiler alert: Contains plot details for Series 4 of The Bridge
Writers Hans Rosenfeldt and Camilla Ahlgren promised great things with the final series of this international Scandi hit and viewers arrived back on the iconic Øresund Bridge with high hopes for our heroes Saga Noren (Sofia Helin) and Henrik Sabroe (Thure Lindhardt). Were they the awesome crime-fighting duo we’d seen at the end of series 3? Were they working together to solve the disappearance of Henrik’s daughters? Well, yes and no.
The series begins with Saga behind bars serving time for her wicked mother’s murder, patiently awaiting a re-trial. We know she didn’t do it, but how on earth can a cop with such limited social skills survive the system unscathed? Devoted Henrik who is trying hard to turn his life around is a frequent visitor. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder – their relationship seems much stronger than ever before. And a good job too, as there are some incredible storms to weather in this series – new highs and desperately tragic lows that are quite alien to Saga’s usual even keel. There’s heartbreak for all here, especially Saga as she finally has to confront her dreadful abusive childhood, and how it’s shaped her adult life. Saga in therapy is powerhouse acting from Sofia Helin, pushing at the limited scope in her character’s movements and facial expressions. I’ve not seen more entertaining and revealing therapy sessions since The Sopranos.
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'The Bridge' – Series 4, Episode 6

This is a full review of The Bridge: Series 4, Episode 5. Catch up with all the reviews here. Don’t read on unless you’re completely up-to-date on the BBC2 schedule!
This week is Tommy’s story. The guy Henrik picked out of the files and put at the top of the investigation board gets a 18 minute long pre-credit explainer. I’m not usually a fan of this way of storytelling, but we are presented with a perfect concise package – a gift to the viewer that comes packed with answers we’ve been dying to find out for weeks.
Four Years Ago
Tommy Peterson worked for the dangerous mob boss William Ramberg, and was a police informant trying desperately to keep a violent gang war from happening. Henrik and Lillian promised to intervene before the shooting started, but couldn’t get sign-off from the prosecutor’s office. All this takes place on Tommy’s son’s birthday, and his son is revealed as wheelchair-user Kevin from Henrik’s NA group. Only four years ago he had the use of his legs and was called Brian.
Tommy is a patient of Niels the psychologist who can’t help him other than by prescribing drugs. And he goes to Richard Dahlqvist to do a tell-all for a newspaper – “Six Dead in Gang War. Police Informed, Did Nothing”. Unfortunately Richard’s eye for detail is Tommy’s ultimate undoing. The way he smokes a cigarette is distinctive and described in the article. In a terrifying meeting with William it’s clear the gangsters know he’s the snitch and they’re preparing to kill him. Turns out Danish cigarettes can kill you in two very different and equally nasty ways. Tommy is clever though, and has set up an escape route but is let down by his friend Moyo. In a classic gangster movie scene it’s William in the car who comes by to sweep up poor Tommy. There’s nowhere left to run.
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'The Bridge' – Series 4, Episode 3

This is a full review of The Bridge: Series 4, Episode 3. Catch up with episode 1  and episode 2. Don’t read on unless you’re completely up-to-date on the BBC2 schedule!
Episode 3 was a classic where not very much happens. Characters willfully impede the investigation and every plot point feels like a dead end, until a frantic final three minutes which leaves you shaking your head and softly repeating the word “What?” to yourself over and over.
Our heros
“I’m not well” says Saga in typical matter-of-fact style. If only it was always so easy to acknowledge your own mental health problems and ask for help. She then lists a devastating catalogue of personal disasters. “We’ve got a bit to work with” says the unflappable therapist, surely in the running for Understatement of the Year 2018.  We hope with help Saga will turn the corner and apply her logical, analytical brain to her own situation, but Mummy is messing with her delicate mental state from beyond the grave – having her lawyer send childhood mementos to Saga’s workplace. Don’t open the box Saga! It’ll be about as much fun as Brad Pitt’s surprise gift in Seven.
The Danish sister from episode two,  christened by the internet Öliver and Dødger, were such a perfect fit for a hole we’re desperate to be filled. Like a Choir of (Young) Believers the internet sang out in one voice “They could be Henrik’s daughters!” And he gets them home a lot faster than I’d have ever imagined, but now in context of their old bedroom he would recognise them, right? He seems to be the only person not swept up in the idea that they’re his long lost children. But one night at Henrik’s Hotel turns into two as these resourceful Tracy Beakers refuse to be sent off to any dumping ground.
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'The Team'

People have been getting very excited about this new euro drama, picked up by MHz Choice in America, Walter Presents of Channel 4 and out now on DVD in the UK. It’s designed very much with the new and surprisingly ravenous appetite for Euro drama in mind, bringing us together like happy clappy Eurovision. It’s supported by about 9 production companies and the ‘with thanks’ list is in big letters at the very start, and is very long. It’s an entire European industrial zone.
The Team of the title is the Europol network, bringing detectives together from Denmark, Belgium, Germany. The lead is Harald Bjorn, played by Lars Mikkelsen who is familiar to viewers as mayoral candidate Troels Hartmann in The Killing, and a sinister villain in a pretty poor Sherlock episode.
Right-wing losers the UK Independence Party don’t like it, which is reason enough for me to give it a try. Also, who knew UKIP had a culture spokesman? You would have thought they were very anti-culture, what with so many foreigners mixed up in it. Wasn’t culture  invented in ancient Greece? It’s enough to make a racist shudder.
Well The Team ought to suit those who distrust foreigners; when it comes to language skills it’s not exactly taxing. It’s entry-level subtitles with plenty of spoken English to break up all that reading. Everyone we come across, from brothels to board rooms, speaks an enviable variety of European languages.
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'McMafia' – BBC1

Having heard a few conflicting reports about the Beeb’s new gangster drama McMafia I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was one of those shows where I think I’ll give it 10 minutes and if it’s rubbish I’ll turn it off. Especially given as it was on New Years Day and I knew it was set in the world of international finance, I wondered if my hungover brain would be able to follow the plot. But, while I could never be described as a mathematical wizz, I’ve got some grounding in telly finance at least, having watched and enjoyed Billions on Sky1. If I could hang on in there for Wall Street insider trading, how much more difficult could the European version be? The spreadsheets in the credits are anything but enticing, but, thankfully, James Norton is.
Turns out, it was fine. We’re introduced to Norton as Alex Godman, a City fund manager raised in England but part of a rich and influential Russian family. His super-wealthy parents escaped the current Russian regime, and it seems like his Dad is an oligarch at odds with Putin (although the President is no mentioned by name). Going back would be impossible, and probably extremely dangerous, so Dad is severely depressed and pines for Moscow while his glamorous Mum worries about his state of mind.
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'No Offence' Series 2

Even in a market saturated with cop shows, it’s a most welcome return for DI Viv Deering and the Friday Street team, here to make your viewing schedule that bit grittier and more northern, with so many zingers it’s a struggle to keep up. Paul Abbot’s sharp script throws down the gauntlet to lesser tv writers everywhere.
Our hero is back to work after the horrific death of her husband at the end of Series 1. Viv, played by supremely talented Joanna Scanlan is glorious, and totally unfazed. She’s at a funeral when what could have been a lethal a bomb goes off but takes it all in her stride, as you’d expect. She jumps in the shower back at the police station and stand there in front of her colleagues proudly naked with big thighs and cellulite. This makes me want to whip off my dressing gown and cheer. Viv is sexy and powerful and totally unashamed.It’s Botticelli’s Birth of Venus only with a bright yellow towel instead of long ginger locks.
The body packed with explosives fortunately wasn’t in the coffin, so the funeral goers survived. The big bang reveals a dodgy crematorium, burying the bodies instead of popping them in the oven. Someone’s not been paying the gas bill. Miller (Paul Ritter) who sweetly describes himself as a bi-polar bear, ends up dealing with the “Hieronymus Bosch job” (say it out loud) ; elbows deep in the grizzly body parts violently displaced by the bomb. He’s in his element.
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'Braquo' Series 4

Grim. Unrelenting. Relentlessly downbeat. An extremely difficult watch. No, not soundbites describing the year that was 2016. These are all the reasons that I never got around to watching the rest of series 2 of hard-boiled French cop drama Braquo. So despite being a big fan of series 1 there’s a distinct gap in my Braquo knowledge as series 4 starts.
It’s a hard watch, but it’s good. This is the real deal – far grittier than any US or British cop show I’ve ever seen.  Braquo was created by former cop Olivier Marchal and based on his knowledge of the beat – a sobering thought considering the morals, or lack of, on show in every single one of his characters. You’re in safe, if grubby, hands, with the Canal+ mark of quality. Just don’t ask where those hands have been.
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