Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgement

Most of the Prime Suspect Series are gritty but this one is the most intense. The nothing to lose attitude of the "bad guys" added with the subtle defeatist attitude of the detective team brings this movie to almost a horror boiling point.

Of course Superintendent Jane Tennison doesn't know or have such problem. Even in this new assignment and new culture Tennison is her usual "get the bad guy at all cost" self. It's a must see but you might not want to watch it alone.

This was the only Prime Suspect movie I saw. The story was good and very intense. Its main attractions are the phenomenal, awesome David O'Hara, a great actor in a good-cop character, and Steven Mackintosh, who was electrifying as a psycho drug dealer. But to put as great an actress as Helen Mirren in that PITIFUL character was just very sad. I don't know who came up with that character, but Tennison's errors of judgment were so lame and plenty that the character herself made me awfully embarrassed of being female. If male chauvinists ever need a proof positive that women ARE the inferior gender, they should look no further. A person like that can't be trusted with boiling an egg, let alone superintending in the PD. If you want to see Mirren in a role worthy of her talent, AND another mesmerizing performance by David O'Hara, go see "Some Mother's Son". But don't get me wrong: this is absolutely worth seeing!

It just gets better. What's to fault in this one? Is there anything? No. Curious how they interweave string quartet music through it - that's a new one. And it's stark - it brings a quality of immediacy and tragedy to it.

Like all in this series, this has a long running time. Like everything in this series, nothing is set in stone. This is longer than many of the others. It's timed at 200 minutes which means a long time in front of the screen.

But it's worth it. This is a strong drama like all of them, and not in the least because of Steven Mackintosh who plays one of the all-time creeps of silver screen or television.

I checked his filmography and saw he's done quite a lot of work and I was surprised because I don't remember ever seeing him before. He really takes out the stops on this one.

As always the story is well written and deftly directed. It's another masterpiece - and it's for television which is the surprise.

And as always, you have to reckon Taylor Hackford's a lucky man.

"Prime Suspect 4" continues the exploits of the inscrutable and dogged seeker of truth and justice, Detective Superintendent Jane Tennison; the first of three miniseries (PS4, PS5, & PS6) with the notable absence of founding writer Lynda La Plante from the credits. Imbued with the same gritty reality of the first three series, the second three series pit Tennison against the forces of evil while coping with middle age, loneliness, indiscretions, a host of personal and professional problems, and resolutions which are sometimes less than ideal. PS4 conjures two stories while PS5 & PS6 are single stories which find Tennison seeking justice on behalf of the brutally wronged while waging war against institutions which are willing to sacrifice the interests of her victims for those of a greater good. In other words, to prevail, Tennison must overcome both evil and good forces, something which makes the always gray scenarios of the PS series yet grayer and the Tennison wars as much a matter of principle as of finding murderers. Very good stuff which only gets better from series to series. (B+)

Prime Suspect's star, Helen Mirren, was indeed irreplaceable. In Errors of Judgment, on the verge of retirement, Jane (Mirren) approaches the case of a missing teenager, which she refuses to abandon until the killer is brought to justice. Simultaneously stricken by personal problems, including her father's illness and her alcoholism, Jane is eventually drawn to a young girl pivot of the case, a smart and fiercely independent sort that reminds her of herself. The story line, as usually, was great. Phil Davies did an excellent job directing, which continued the style employed by Tom Hooper in the previous episodes. Prime Suspect was a TV series that both renewed the post-modern crime series and unfortunately fed the commonplace, undignified sex & violence elements that plague it nowadays.