Film: Red Riding Trilogy (In the Year of Our Lord 1974; 1980; 1983)
Year: 2009
Director: Julian Jarrold (1974), James Marsh (1980), Anand Tucker (1983)
Written by: Tony Grisoni
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Rebecca Hall, David Morrissey, Paddy Considine, Robert Sheehan, Peter Mullan, Warren Clarke, Jim Carter, Eddie Marsan, Sean Harris, Maxine Peake, Sean Bean.
Running time: 295 min.
I've always somewhat disliked television, but what I dislike even more are made-for-TV films. They usually don't have much going for them, have no stylistic intentions whatsoever and employ a who's who of B-grade actors. All too often have I likened completely average movies with a huge amount of potential to the made-for-TV area, or used it as a whipping stick of some sort. However, there was a trilogy of movies made for British televisions in 2009 which was good enough to get a theatrical release in America in 2010. It was also good enough to change my attitude towards the television movies I so disliked before. The Red Riding trilogy, based upon David Peace's quartet of books looking at a series of murder and crime in Yorkshire, is one heck of a trilogy, ranking up there with the best. In fact, you wouldn't even be able to tell that this started out as a television project, because of the high-calibre of actors and well-informed production and stylistic values.
