Cracker

The pleasure of seeing Robbie Coltrane as police psychologist Fitz probe a suspect's psyche is worth about three of the four points I gave his long-awaited return as "Cracker." But the heavy-handed production and mawkish direction drained all the sap out of what have should have been an exciting reunion. Since the thin plot clearly doesn't merit some two hours, the camera lingers on long, dull shots of angst-ridden characters mixed with time-killing news clips of the war in Iraq. Several contributors have pointed to the anti-American tone of the piece and true, the American characters (particularly one arrogant philandering victim) range from nasty to clueless. Fine, if the writer thinks we're all a bunch of clods, that's his privilege. But boring dialogue and an overdose of deus-ex-machina (the coincidental encounter of a criminal and a witness) is less excusable. I'd love to see Coltrane play Cracker again. But til someone comes up with a better script and a decent production, I'll settle for the Harry Potter series.

last nights episode of Cracker was a welcome return to a long lost friend. Robbie as ever played the role of Fitz to perfection. Not only did the plot revolve around current world issues but it was good to see that the subject of mental Health was also portrayed sensitively but with reality. While not all those with Mental Health problems will go the the extremes portrayed it helped to show that people with problem can and do successfully hold down full time jobs. it was an fictional representation that followed on well from the factual program screened by BBC2 earlier in the week "The secret Life of a manic Depressive" and while both programmes would appeal to different audiences and ages the message on this crucial area of health was the same. Congratulations to Jimmy Mcgovern and the team. Hope there will be another series soon - its been to long since we had drama of this quality

Great to see the big man back, though I felt an inward groan when I saw the theme. But Jimmy McGovern has improved with rage - no appeasing one small section of the suffering population by focusing on Asians. He went for the big picture and said EXACTLY what many people have been feeling for several years now about American money backing Northern Ireland, the myth of the Yanks winning WWII for the Allies, and the b.s. that is the war in Iraq. Some top acting from the leads plus the usual McGovern snappy intelligence in the writing made it essential viewing. Jimmy McGovern is our national treasure. His scripts make up for the oceans of bad clichés strangling uniform operas such as The Bill, Spooks, and every other indigo-coloured cop show bloating up our screens nowadays. Thank you! The one aberration he didn't have time to mention is the other grave crime that the Americans have yet to answer for: the butchery of Robbie Coltrane in the name of the US-produced abomination 'Fitz'.

For those of you who've never heard of it (or seen it on A&E), Cracker is a brilliant British TV show about an overweight, chain-smoking, foulmouthed psychologist named Fitz who helps the Manchester police department get into the heads of violent criminals. It's considered to be one of the finest shows ever to come out of England (and that's saying something), and was tremendously successful in England and around the world back in 1993.

Now, the original stars have re-teamed with the original writer to knock out one more 2-hour episode. I've loved this show ever since I'd first seen it, over a decade ago. The DVD box set holds a place of honor in my collection, and I can quote a good deal of Fitz's interrogation scenes practically word for word. The idea of Robbie Coltrane reteaming with Jimmy McGovern for another TV movie about Fitz filled me with absolute glee.

I'll start with the good. One of the many things that impressed me about the original Cracker series was how quickly Fitz was defined as a character. Five minutes into the first episode – with his lecture (throwing the books into the air), his drinking, and his cussing of the guy after him on the gambling machine queue – and you knew, simply knew, who this character was. You could feel him "clicking" in your mind, the kind of click that only happens when a great actor gets a great role written by a great writer.

Coltrane, of course, remained great throughout the show, but I always felt that some of the later episodes – those not written by McGovern – mistreated the character.

So the good news is this: Fitz is back. As soon as you see him in this show – making incredibly inappropriate comments at his daughter's wedding – you'll feel that "click" once again. It's him: petulant one moment and truly sorry the next, always insightful, sincere to the point of tactlessness but brilliantly funny in the process. If you love this character as much as I do, you'll be delighted with how he is portrayed in the movie. And this extends to Judith and Mark: in fact, everything having to do with the Fitzs is handled perfectly.

The problem I do have with this movie revolves around the crime Fitz is trying to solve. In standard Cracker fashion, we know exactly who the criminal is in the first five minutes – the suspense lies in seeing Fitz figure it out. In this case, we have a serial killer who is out for American blood. And the reason for this, unfortunately, is not due to any believable psychological trauma – rather, it seems that the murders are here simply to allow the writer to display his personal political beliefs.

It's difficult for me to write this, as I truly believe that Jimmy McGovern is one of the greatest writers in the world. Nor do I have a problem with movies that are about current issues, or movies that take a political stand. But in the Cracker universe, we expect to see the characters behaving like human beings, not like caricatures. Instead, the Americans in this movie are all depicted in an entirely stereotypical fashion. They're know-nothing loudmouths who complain about everything, treat the locals like crap and cheat on their wives – one of them even manages to do all of the above within less than 5 minutes. I honestly thought I'd mistakenly switched channels or something.

But it doesn't stop there. We get constant reminders of just how badly the war in Iraq is going – reminders that have nothing whatsoever to do with the story and appear practically out of nowhere. The killer is so busy ranting about how Bush is worse than Hitler that he almost forgets to get on with the killing; but more to the point, he is such a mouthpiece for the writer's political views that he forgets to act like a believable human being, and thus we – as an audience – don't buy his sudden transformation from a happy family man to a tortured serial-killing soul.

I can't say that this ruined the show for me – it's was still good TV, better than almost everything else in the genre (mainly due to, once again, Coltrane). But its constant politicizing made it impossible for it to be as good as the real Cracker classics like "To Be A Somebody" – an episode that was just as "issuey", but one that was handled with far more subtlety and psychological depth.

Two other small points: Panhandle not being around is a disappointment, but what's worse are her replacements. The entire police department – which for so long filled with such great characters - is now full of vanilla. Completely interchangeable cops who lack any and all personality (how you could drain Coupling's Richard Coyle of personality is beyond me, but it is indeed missing here).

Also, there are couple of moments where the show lost its believability for me. One such instance revolves around Fitz having to narrow down the entire population of Manchester from 1 million to a hundred based on some very strange criteria (French windows? How does the computer know if I have French windows?) – he not only succeeds in doing this, but he succeeds in less than an hour. I don't think so.

So, all in all, I was a little disappointed. It's recommended viewing, but remember to leave at least some of your expectations at the door. Still, if there's new series to come after this, it would all have been for the good: I'm convinced that McGovern can still write great stuff, and maybe now that he's got his politics out of his system he can go back to writing about people.

That its a welcome return is a given because Cracker was one of most accomplished, socially aware dramas of the last twenty years. ITVs decision to revive it also makes sense as the channel is in terminal decline. It hasn't just been ten years since we saw Fitz, its been almost as long since there was anything approaching intelligent, well written drama in ITV's prime time schedule.

The new episode is therefore gratefully received but with more than a little trepidation - after all later Cracker episodes not written by McGovern struggled to maintain the standard and Paul Abbot's White Ghost, the last special broadcast in 1995 suffered from taking Ftiz from his native Manchester stomping grounds and a dearth of fully rounded supporting characters. The good news is that Nine Eleven is better than White Ghost - the bad news is that it suffers from multiple creative lapses - entirely avoidable and somewhat ridiculous given the talent behind the camera.

In the first instance McGovern' script is really just a channel for his political views on post-911 American hypocrisy, particularly their reconstructed views on Terrorism. The points he makes via Kenny, the ex-Northern Ireland solider who snaps and kills an American stand up making flippant jokes about the War on Terror, are valid and come from an intellectually well-sourced left wing position. Just don't say Mcgovern's an apologist for Islamic Fascism. The problem is that the subtley that characterised the best of the series, by which we mean McGovern's other polemics, Albie in 'to be a somebody' the most memorable example, is absent from this new episode. Watching it is like being hit over the head for two hours. News footage from the wars in Afganistan and Iraq open the story, a misstep that seems out of touch with the more grounded tone of the original series. Then there's Fitz's uncharacteristic obsession with September 11th and this is before a single murder has taken place. When McGovern sticks to his characters he always succeeds but here most are mere cyphers channelling his political views. Those who aren't part of this agitprop are relegated to bit parts and two dimensions - the new Manchester police lacking the definition of the old supporting cast who lent so much weight to the proceedings and provide Fitz with much needed foils and contrasting intellects.

That isn't to say that the new episode is poor - its weighty, provocative stuff - at times uncomfortable and challenging like the best of the series. Whats lacking is the balance that existed in previous McGovern scripts, here replaced by a bombast that makes characterisation secondary. Ill-advised production touches like the new graphics and the new order score tend to detract from rather than enhance the action and the conclusion leaves you happy you've seen Fitz again but cheated that there was so little of him, if you'll pardon the expression - so dominated is the episode by the vengeful soldier with the murderous bent.

I hope this isn't the last Cracker, though its a more fitting epitaph than White Ghost - clearly McGovern needs isshoooes to compel him to write the bloody thing but if he can be motivated and surely there's plenty of cultural angst left to probe, and a crack team of writers can be drafted in to help out, then a new series could yet hit the heights of those classic stories. All in all Nine Eleven was a slight disappointment. If there are future episodes lets hope they retain the distance of previous stories and give us something more than a political lecture masquerading as a piece of a finely crafted police drama.