Cannes Confidential

I watched 4 episodes, so I gave this a real shot.

Let's start with the good. The show itself is a regular crime per episode with an underlying back story tying the main character into some larger mystery. The setting is beautiful, the people are beautiful.

Unfortunately, that's where the good ends. A sulky, work obsessed female lead broken down by a charming male counterpart is becoming a little overdone (and was.definitely done better in Mallorca Files), and this barely plays with the formula enough to set itself apart. The back-story itself is just too slow burning and the individual crimes of each episode just don't feel very well built.

I feel awful typing this, but I do feel that if the French actors were able to speak in their native tongue, their acting would feel far more convincing and their personalities would shine a little more. As it stands it feels forced in a lot of ways, and it's made worse with the contrast to Jamie Bamber's "upper-class" English accent. The chief of police I'm still not sure isn't dubbed even after watching so much.

Enough of that though. All around, I think it's watchable so I'm not going super low on the rating, but there are far better examples of the genre to go to before you get to this.

The good: Scenery is beautiful & I like the Harry King actor. At least he can act. The potential for good story lines is there but it keeps missing the mark.

The bad: Pretty much everything else...the dialogue, writing, editing, acting (especially the female leads), the same backstory has been way overdone & the filming & lighting were dark. Colours seem really off to me in some indoor scenes. Not in an artistic way. Makes me wonder if it was filmed on a phone. The very worst is the sound track that sounds like it's from the '80's and completely drowns out the dialogue, which is hard to make out anyway with the French accents but impossible with the music. We had to watch with subtitles. The worst episode is the 1st one.

I am a murder mysteries addict. I have BritBox, I have MHZ, and Acorn. I watch German language detective shows in France, English detective stories anywhere in the world, but the accents were so bad that Cc was required. I could barely get through the first 10 minutes much less all the way through the show as the lighting and cinematography were terrible. At the first crime scene, The camera was literally on the floor looking up at the two detectives talking, why? The two detectives are clones of each other. Exotic ratty haired, puffy lipped 20 somethings women. And their outfits??? This is France for heaven sakes.... why are the detectives walking around with cheap blouses, super tight jeans and silver booties? At least it wasn't like 10 years ago when all the female detectives wore black pants, black jackets and a tank top with half their boobs sticking out. Now the focus seems to be the booty. In The first half hour there were several shots showing the detective walking away with the lens focused on her butt incased in the tightest jeans ever. I don't want to sound like a prude but it would be tolerable if there was anything going on. According to other reviewers nothing seems to improve in the next episodes....so I will stop here. BTW, many comparisons with Mallorca Murders...and except for similar european coastal towns, Mallorca is great. Especially after the first two episodes and the protagonist are comfortable with each other. I like that there is chemistry between the German and English detectives without it falling into a cliched romance.

But (as you may have guessed), I didn't. Let me explain why.

This is classic detective-fun-glorious scenery-not to take seriously crime series. Main actors are very attractive and obviously the french scenery is very beautiful.

If it didn't take itself seriously and had a bit of comidic tone it might have worked better, for example the Mallorca Files are excellent series.

Here though, the main female protagonist is way too young to be a lieutenant, she is always overdressed for the occation (ie arriving at the crime scene with high heel boots like she is going to a party) and she is also mainly being pissed of about everything. Last but not least, she cannot act.

Bamber is ok, he seems charming , not over the top but the writers have him restrained in terms of his part as a counterweight to the Lucie Lucas importance to the series.

It might have been an entertaining series but the characters are dull, the crime story not interesting enough and the final product is more of a miss than a hit.

We wanted to like it. But a little too woke with actresses that can't act, who lack any femininity, and spend all the time fist fighting and kick boxing the men (the bad guys). Beautiful scenery on the French Riviera. That's it. The lead actress has zero charisma. The other actress hates everyone and takes the fun out of everything. There's no pleasantness in this shows. No sexy undercurrents. They tried to make a Mallorca Files but missed in every aspect. The Mallorca Files is the way it should have been done. Recast the whole thing with characters that have effervescence and panache. And don't have every episode end with ladies duking it out, and badly I might say.