Cracker: Cracker [DVD] [2006]

It's rare that I regret buying off of Amazon UK. BBC shows that are shown in the United States have 12-15 minutes cut out and storylines don't always come through.

I own all of the previous Cracker series and occasionally pull them out and still enjoy them. The stories are still good and the acting top-rate. I would recomend them anytime.

This latest Cracker is a pass. The story just wasn't there. It doesn't matter how good the actors are now or were in the past series. There's nothing enjoyable about Fitz or the storyline and it is such a shame.

My comparison is this: The last Cracker episode and last Prime Suspect episode came out about the same time. The writing and storyline on Prime Suspect was excellent and it was a stoic good-bye to Jane Tennison. The writer knew the history of the character and maintained it in the storyline. Cracker: A New Terror does not hold up. Everything that made the character interesting in the older episodes is gone. The new episode was painful to watch.

I'll go back to watching the old Cracker and try to forget they even made this one.

What a shame. Less like Cracker as was known and loved throughout the 90's, more like ageing rock stars revisiting former glory days, their old energy and vitality no longer there. Where once characters we cared about drove the action, here the central characters barely feature. Where acute, social observation once feed plot and characters, both are now eclipsed by lecturing, social sound bytes. Americans, Terrorism and 9/11 feature heavy handedly in this uninspired tale of a former British soldier turned killer. Notable stalwarts like Penhaligan and Wise no longer feature (nor is there any credible backstory to account for the past ten years) and their replacements are one dimensional, cardboard cut-outs barely registering cameo appearances. Into this mix Robbie Coltrane tries to inject something credible but, given little to work with, fails to deliver except on rare moments, which only serve to remind how good this show really was and how bad this spin off is. Not his fault. Jimmy McGoverns uncharacteristically substandard script and Antonia Birds shambolic direction must take much of the blame.

This episode ends as if to be continued. Whilst answers to many questions in the Cracker canon are still eagerly sought (what happened to Penhaligon, etc.) on the evidence of this it would be better not to know than to have the Cracker experience further tarnished with another sub standard offering.

I was inspired to write this review after reading the previous commentator's gushing nonsense, in the attempt - I suppose - to add a little perspective to this whole ITV shambles of a once fantastic series. The original three series run of Cracker from 1993 to 1995 were exceptional stuff, dented only by the bloodless 1996 "special", White Ghost, which saw Fitz take on a clichéd murder case in surprisingly subdued Hong Kong. The loss of Jimmy McGovern after the third season high-point Brotherly Love also saw the series fall into a kind of self parody, somewhat re-hashing the plot of second episode To Say I Love You for the penultimate episode Best Boys, or ripping off a Fatal Attraction style situation for the final episode True Romance (though, to be honest, the final confrontation here between Fitz and his suspect was absolutely perfect in its execution).

Now we have the return of Cracker; with the filmmakers exploiting the new look Manchester following the IRA terrorist bombing of 1996, and developing the thread of a plotline in which Fitz has to reacclimatise to the city following a 7 year hiatus spent living in Australia. The real reason Fitz is back in Manchester is to attend the wedding of his daughter and to spend some time with his grand kids. However, all of these character elements are quickly dropped when a disgruntled squaddie murders a young American in a nightclub toilet. For what seems like no reason at all, Fitz is brought in by the Manchester police to offer some expert perspective (despite the fact that they've already told him he won't be allowed to talk to the victims, the witnesses or the suspects), and soon decides (again, with very little evidence) that the suspect is a police officer (he also works out which police officer it is in the time it would usually take to make a cup of tea). When a second American is killed in his home, it becomes clear that the former squaddie has a serious political agenda liked specifically to the war in Iraq, and the current political world climate post 9/11.

What follows is some serious brick-batting around the issues of terrorism, as the story finds itself punctuated by news reports, conversations and stock footage that play out in some kind giddy, over excited parody of an Oliver Stone film that I personally found to be obvious and highly distracting. Fitz is a shadow of his former self here, given no time to develop his character or even build on the usual characteristics we've seen before. Worse still are the relationships between Fitz and his family - which are essentially non-existence - with his wife (played by a surprisingly aged Barbara Flynn) and now adult son (Kieran O'Brien, last seen as art-house porn drama 9 Songs) popping up in the background a few times before we cut to another piece of ITN stock footage or a needless Belfast-based flashback (probably best if I don't elaborate, so as not to deter from the plot).

This time around, there is no relationship between Fitz and the police. Admittedly, most of the key characters from the series couldn't come back (watch the original series and you'll find out why), but the lack of real involvement here is a major problem, and stretches the realism of the drama significantly. The magic of Cracker was always the subtle blending of police drama, soap opera and psychological thriller, but these have been toned down or removed completely for this twenty-first century up-date. The scrip shows how much McGovern has lost it as a writer, picking up where turgid BBC serial The Street left off with its lifeless characters, clichéd stories and obvious use of subject. Added to this, we also have the needlessly trendy direction from Antonia Bird (Priest, Face, Ravenous), which also included the ugly new title sequence and up-tempo dance-orientated soundtrack from New Order off-shoot The Other Two. The staging seems desperate, like an old man dancing to a Prodigy track at his daughter's wedding. The series didn't need this...

The thing I always loved about Cracker was its no-nonsense seriousness, and the refusal to follow contemporary trends. The direction was usually on a par with European art-house, in my opinion, with a great use of close-ups, fantastic framing, naturalistic lighting and the ability to create drama and tension without having to shake the camera around. Russell Clarke's self-satisfied twittering claims that Cracker "takes a sideswipe at the world's moral vacuum", but really, when we compare it to past episodes like To Be a Somebody and Brother Love, it's really nothing more than the self-righteous ravings of a miserable old man having a moan from the comfort of their armchair. Some of the details might be there, but ultimately this is Cracker-lite... a poor man's re-tread of one of the best dramas of the 90's, only with the drama replaced by screaming polemic. We expect more from Cracker, and certainly more from McGovern. Sadly, it seems those days are over.