Stick or Twist

I also hate Turkish Delight, but I love the start of this new series from Ronan Bennett.

The dialogue and the action are thick and fast, so you had better pay close attention. I recommend turning on the subtitles!

Tom Hardy (Harry Da Souza) is always great, and he shines herein. But, for me, it's Pierce Brosnan (Conrad Harrigan) who steals the show.

Helen Mirren (Maeve Harrigan) also brings her steely charms.

Originally, this series was going to be a 'Ray Donovan' prequel and tell the story of the Donovan's in the old country. But, the producers and Paramount decided not to limit the story and so the family name was changed.

This has all the hallmarks of a hit and a water-cooler-discussion series on Monday. Here's me hoping, innit!

Aside the fact that I almost didn't comprehend (comprehend is the next level of understanding) two single words of their words and speech all because of that accent (someone please enlighten me is it Irish or straight from Manchester docks).

What I did fully understand is that if you don't wanna see (ever again) Harry Da Souza and his more phlegmatically psychotic and very prone to pruning boss Conrad Harrigan who's tossing and turning under Maeve Harrigan's metallic sheets, you'd better remember every last word that need to come out of your mouth.

That I fully understood and that Stick or Twist trademark has forever been hammered into my gray matter.

• Screenplay/storyline/plots: 7
• Production value/impact: 8
• Development: 7.5
• Realism: 7.5
• Entertainment: 8
• Acting: 8
• Filming/photography/cinematography: 8
• VFX: 8
• Music/score/sound: 7
• Depth: 7
• Logic: 5.5
• Flow: 8
• Psychological drama/crime/drama/family gang thriller: 7.5
• Ending: 8.

Love it! The story and acting were on point. The roles were cast to perfection without a doubt. Can't wait for episode 2! Tom Hardy NEVER disappoints. He is quite the gem for sure. As usual Guy Ritchie's story did not disappoint either.

This is a series I can seeing dishing out so many great story lines about the characters. I can't wait to see how everything plays out throughout the series. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is a fan of mafia type shows and movies.

Once again can not wait to see how the story progresses. To me right up there with The Sopranos as far as gangster dramas go.

The editing is pretty mental, genuinely incompetent at parts, like huge gaps between characters reacting to an event, through cutting between them sequentially. Tom Hardy is usually pretty decent but it just feels like a worse Alfie Solomons here.

Helen Mirren is fine as hell and honestly? Zero beers.

Plus she's good in the show.

Pierce Bronson gives a shockingly poor performance here. I feel bad cause I like him in Lawnmower Man and Bond memes, I just feel like his character is so underwritten and one-dimensional he cannae do anything to salvage it.

The script is unbelievably whack. No dosser on planet earth speaks like that, even funny cockney fellas.

Considine is the best part of this so far, fire actor to be fair. Might watch more if only for your man Paddy.

It's like all the stars are reprising a character they played in a movie or series already and the director thought, "I'll take other peoples' toys and make my own fun time sandbox creation." And the obvious DEI empowered totally 4th wall breaking character they added in the opening was silly. They had to show her be merciless and head shot a guy who was already down just to show us she's strong and tough, just like, well, you know the stale trope they've been pushing now since 2016. It completely stood out like an Irishman in the field along with slaves in Roots or something would stand out. Then it got boring. If you've never seen the last 50 years of gang/mob movies, then yeah, this is great. But it's really just another mob fam movie with actors playing roles they've already played in other things.