The Hack

STAR RATING: ***** Brilliant **** Very Good *** Okay ** Poor * Awful

Guardian journalist Nick Davies (David Tennant) stumbles upon a conspiracy to intercept the voicemails of numerous celebrities, after a series of salacious headlines and exposes in notorious British tabloid The News of the World. His digging leads to involvement with Southern Investigations, a private surveillance company that has links to the murder of journalist Daniel Morgan, leading Nick into the path of DCS Dave King (Robert Carlyle), who's trying to get justice for the Morgan family.

Over a decade since the phone hacking scandal was exposed, and the once mighty News of the World came crashing down and eventually closed, revealing a hidden, murky world motivated by the motif of 'freedom of the press', it's hard to imagine a time when the phenomenon of 'celebrity scandals' was such a part of mainstream life, and the cold cynicism of what lay behind it. But this several part ITV production brings it back to life, with some hit and miss results.

The story is one of collision, and as such it's two characters juxtaposed together, to create a joint momentum. And so it's a pretty big bugbear that the tone is so unevenly balanced. This is a true life tale of serious gravity, and yet Davies spends a large portion of the series breaking the fourth wall, with a load of naff background hijinks interposed with his monologues that feel ill fitting with the material. Tennant's performance is decent enough, and he certainly bears a resemblance to the real life Davies, but it's Carlyle who steals the show as the tormented, disillusioned detective trying to bring justice to a ground-down family.

It's a worthy story to bring to the screen, and the results are far from disastrous, but an uneven and unfitting tone result in something that doesn't fully align. ***

Loved this series.

The form was unconventional and the writing was phenomenal, however the main strength of the show is the acting.

David Tennant portrays Nick so beautifully with all those amazing moments of vulnerability that DT is really a master of and Robert Carlyle is just superb. He made Dave absolutely relatable and showed the misery and frustration with utmost expertise. I also really enjoyed Toby Jones, the way he showed love and care for Nick, and Dougray Scott as Gordon Brown was really a master class in acting.

Do watch this show, folks, it's definitely worth it.

Outstanding, the style may be out there for sure but I like it. Excellent storytelling of an atrocious scandal. Opens your eyes to how easily we can be led by those in power, and how they get away with it. And you see it again today, hatred is being carefully stoked, and people get pulled along like puppets. Many don't question it - simple lies feel safer than hard truths, and the comfort of belonging to a "tribe" outweighs the discomfort of doubt. And while communities fracture, the real beneficiaries are those funding the hate. They grow richer, seize more power, and tighten their control. We need more Nicks and Alans.

Great story, fantastic cast, hard to follow.

This is an intriguing and largely well executed portrayal of one of the greatest scandals to have hit the UK in the last 30 years.

However, as compelling as The Hack is, it trips itself up throughout but running numerous adjacent stories lines that are not carefully woven into one another. It also looks to jump backwards and forwards in time without time stamps leaving the viewer relying on character appearance changes - with moustache vs without moustache - as a form of cue.

Overall it's well done, worth watching, but it isn't binge able and you have to give it the attention it deserves.

I loved this and the cast is amazing, Tennant leads and is as always as marvellous as he is beautiful.

Lots of actors pop up to tell this important story of injustice I binged the lot in two days it's fast and snappy direction eased the binging on a heavy story Just a shame the wig department was from Temu.