Cannes Confidential

I wanted to like this so badly. Love Jamie Bamber, beautiful scenery on the French Riviera, heists, capers... what could go wrong? Well..... apparently a lot. Start with a lead actress with zero charisma and acting ability, then take yourself too seriously and remove all of the fun and romance and intrigue and make it weird and dark with everyone pissed off all the time. Whoever was in charge here missed the boat completely and should really have taken a cue from shows like The Mallorca Files or Candace Renoir. It's a shame really to waste so much potential. Get a different lead actress and revamp.

Alas, Cannes Confidential, besides its beautiful scenery, is a bust.

The women were cast too young and with ridiculous outfits.

The plot involving the father is confusing and doesn't seem necessary.

I only watched this show because of Jamie Bamber. This is so beneath him. First of all, for me to keep watching, he'd have to be in every scene and of course he isn't- he undoubtedly spends most of his time trying to line up another job or changing agents.

He's gorgeous, so with him and the scenery, it's not a total write-off.

I say cast some believable police detectives and feature Jamie in another series.

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.

Overall, I have enjoyed this so far. There is a mix of murder mystery via police (and a questionable guy who seems to be good intentioned) and action, with a beautiful setting in Cannes.

The lead male character and actor is great, and some other characters and guest characters are fine, but unfortunately the lead woman detective character is overly serious and mean. Her dialogue and delivery is often fairly corny as well. Similar issue for her boss, who at least is on the screen far less.

Those behind the show likely wanted the detective to have a heavy French accent (when speaking English) to make it feel a bit more realistic as it's set in south France, but it still feels odd there is almost no French dialogue at all, including from that lead detective. I think adding some would benefit the show and I hope they can incorporate some in future episodes if the already completed episodes don't have any.

I'll continue watching and update my score and review at the end of the season.

Side note, the question below the user reviews asks, "Was this review helpful?" Not, "do you agree with the score they gave?" My score wasn't even that high, but since it's not below a 5 and mentions some positives, those who completely hate this show are using "No" like a downvote.

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.