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Helena727
Reviews
Trial & Retribution: Sins of the Father: Part 1 (2006)
Don't waste your time.
As a fan of "Prime Suspect" -- also written by Lynda LaPlante -- I blithely assumed that "Trial and Retribution" would be a taut, suspenseful, fascinating drama/mystery with well-developed characters. Quite the opposite: dull, flabby story; two-dimensional characters (a pity, because some of the actors are extremely talented); ludicrous dialog; and interpersonal subplots clumsily yoked together rather than arising from complex characters well and truly understood by the writer. And Victoria "I have two intonations, no more!" Smurfit is a train wreck in the lead.
To reiterate: Don't waste your time.
Harvard Man (2001)
Abysmal, abysmal, abysmal -- and not in a good (campy) way.
I'd give it a zero if I could. Thank goodness I didn't rent this (saw it on TV). The bloatedly egotistical writer/director, who's way too in love with his Harvard degree, wasted a decent idea by creating one-dimensional characters and then casting with second-rate actors -- none of whom is a complex-enough/bright-enough person or skilled-enough actor to convince viewers that they're Harvard students or instructors -- who turned in one-dimensional performances. I can only imagine that he was jumping on the youth bandwagon and thus cast some of the names of the moment, but he would have done better had he gone with unknowns who are actually gifted. Utter waste of time; do not watch this.
Miranda (2002)
Don't waste a minute of your life on this one.
I'm a huge fan of John Hurt, Julian Rhind-Tutt, and Kyle MacLachlan (and a sometime fan of Christina Ricca), but even their considerable talents couldn't save this clunker. The plot -- an unsuccessful combo of a romantic comedy and a caper flick -- is improbable, and it fails; the dialog is often flat/trite/dead; Ricci, though an interesting and compelling presence, fails to make her character believable; and even though John Simm is wonderful as Frank the librarian, I didn't buy his passion for Ricci's character (the writer is to blame for final criticism and partly to blame for the third). What a waste of phenomenal talent and money, and a waste of 90 minutes of my life. Avoid this film.