Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1974

A binge watching of RED RIDING TRILOGY, three TV movies adapted from David Peace's RED RIDING QUARTET, where its second chapter 1977 is skipped. Directed by three different directors in three different formats: 1974 by Julian Jarrold in 16mm film, 1980 by James Marsh in 35mm film and 1983 by Anand Tucked with Red One digital camera, the trilogy forebodingly trawls into the organized crimes and police corruption in West Yorkshire through the prisms of three different protagonists while they are wrestling with a series of murder cases, and overall, it inspires to achieve a vérité similitude of the bleak milieu while sometimes being mired with its own navel- gazing, such as narrative banality (1974), over-calculated formality (1980) and poorly indicated flashback sequences (1983).

In 1974, the bright-young-thing Eddie Dunford (Garfield) is an ambitious crime reporter for The Yorkshire Post, who takes it on himself to probe three similar cases of missing or murdered teenage girls, which puts his own life on the line. He hits every nook and cranny of procedural clichés, from losing a dear colleague Barry Gannon (Flanagan). who knows too much of the dirty business (after being inauspiciously warned about his own safety) nevertheless withholds crucial information from Eddie, to the police's porous covering-up of the culprit with a scapegoat Michael Myshkin (Mays), until Eddie meets Paul Garland (Hall), who channels a shopworn ambiguity between a grieved damsel-in-distress and an inscrutable gangster's moll, whom he incurably falls in love with. Finally his path comes across with John Dawson (Bean), a local real estate magnate, and after succumbs to an excruciating reality check signed by both Dawson and police force, Eddie despondently realizes he cannot save nobody, a final vigilante bloodbath is his last gamble to right the wrong in the only option he is left with (again, manipulated). The movie is shot in subdued retro-sheen, Garfield fleshes out Eddie's fix with absorbing commitment, and Hall is magnificent to behold in her blond charisma.

This is the first part of a trilogy about a serial murderer that kidnaps, rapes and kills little girls. As a young and emotional rookie journalist does his own investigations concerning the most recent and third murder, local police officers, entrepreneurs and even his own boss try do everything to hide a mysterious secret surrounding the murders. No one is innocent in this circle of corruption, power and abuse.

The first part of this trilogy is a very atmospheric film noir. It is a slow paced investigation that takes place in a rainy, grey and desperate entourage and where the main character discovers the evil that men do. While the beginning of the movie is a little bit boring and doesn't explain enough the first murders of the possible serial killer, the film gets more profound, intense and even shocking towards the ending and you really get absorbed by a dark and destructive atmosphere during the last thirty minutes of this movie that makes you watch the follow-up immediately.

The story is complex and many characters are introduced in the frustrating beginning but towards the end of the movie, you get used to all those characters and are able to create connections between them and that helps you to understand and appreciate the movie more and more. The actors are doing a quite well and authentic job and not only because of the very particular accent and entourage. Andrew Garfield plays a solid role as a young, naive and emotional journalist that does many mistakes during his quest for the truth. Rebecca Hall is doing a great job and plays the role of a disturbed and mysterious femme fatale with a tragic destiny. Sean Benn does an incredible job by playing the role of a rich, cold and dangerous businessman.

The best part of the movie is its very brutal and yet twisted ending that is filmed in a very intense way. The director did a great overall job in this movie and created some very intense footages that add a lot to the atmosphere of the movie. The way he cuts the final scenes and also the dream or hallucination sequences is very eerie and special. Concerning the end of the movie, I would like to give you the advice to check out the three deleted scenes on the DVD that add a special something to the atmosphere of the movie and to its end. I don't understand why those scenes have been deleted because they are all very strong and not filler material.

I've mentioned a lot of positive points and you might ask yourself why I didn't give eight or even nine stars to the movie. That's because of the slow paced beginning, the cliché that everything and everybody is corrupted, evil and brutal and that some events during this movie are too predictable because of that. The movie is intense and absorbing but up to the last thirty minutes there isn't much tension. There is also especially one scene that I found strange, as the young journalist gives the life's work of his deceased partner and friend to a young police officer. This scene has simply a lack of logic in my opinion and doesn't fit with the behaviour of the journalist that did everything on his own without caring about laws or instructions and that had some very bad experiences with the police.

But all in all, this is a very absorbing and authentic film noir with an excellent ending that makes me look forward to watch the follow-up quickly. If you like this genre, this movie is a most-have and highlight for you and if you like ordinary movies about criminal investigations you may get disturbed by the dark and brutal ending of the movie that distinguishes this film from the ordinary ones. No matter in which category you fit, I would highly recommend you this film and encourage you to not give up during the overlong introduction because the second part of the movie is more than worth the wait.

It is 1974. Our protagonist, young and hip, has shaggy hair, sideburns, and a slick leather jacket. Asked about his suit at his father's funeral: "Carnaby's," he admits. "Oh, ay," says one mourner, with a hint of added dismay.

He's been in the South, you see. American viewers with a limited perception of the UK may, at the beginning of Channel Four's remarkable Red Riding trilogy, have little understanding of what difference that makes. They will soon learn. "This is the North," says one of the terrifying policemen who populate this film's haunted Yorkshire. "Where we do what we want."

Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974 begins under lowering skies. A girl of ten has vanished. A young and callow crime reporter Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield) gets clued in by a conspiracy-minded colleague that the vanishing resembles two previous cases within a close range. Eager to make his mark, he senses opportunity, and in excitement at the idea that a serial murderer might be at work he blurts, "Let's keep our fingers crossed."

As the story deepens, however, so does the character. The grief of the victims' families needles him; he begins a relationship with one girl's heartsick mother (Rebecca Hall). Picking apart the story that emerges, he is drawn into the orbit of a wealthy developer (Sean Bean) with an unwholesome degree of influence in Yorkshire and its power structure. The perpetrator of the crimes is unquestionably psychopathic -- he stitches "angels' wings" into his victims' backs. Yet, in the film's most disturbing element, the police department itself functions as a psychopath, achieving its desires through brutalization, torture, and even possibly murder.

Caught in a conscienceless land, Dunford's own conscience, in reaction, grows, and what began as mere ambition transforms into a perhaps doomed lust for the truth. If this sounds like a conventional trope of the genre, it is -- plotwise much of what happens here is conventional. But Red Riding makes the narrative fresh by treating it not just as a story of crime and justice but as one of the soul, and its environs. When Dunford begs the mother to escape with him from the prevailing madness, he tells her, "In the South the sun shines." What he's telling her is that the sickness is inseparable from the place. Yorkshire is filmed (with gorgeous gloom) as a cloud-shrouded ruin, an economic disaster site in which financial power trumps morality. Starting out fresh-faced, vain, and cocky, Dunford will, by the end of his journey, be considerably the worse for wear. Looking at the landscape around him, we think, how could he not be?

Red Riding 1974 is not flawless -- some scenes feel repetitive and the bleakness can be overwhelming. But it compels you forward, it stays with you, and it genuinely rattles the spirit. This is not easy viewing, but in approaching the continuing saga, it promises hard- earned reward.

I'll start by saying that I was expecting to like this before I watched it. Whether that had a bearing on my judgement, I can't really say.

'Nineteen Seventy-Four' has shades of 'Taxi Driver', the narrative framed not by the steam that rises from the streets of New York City but instead by the skies of Yorkshire. The comparison between the two movies really occurred to me most strongly at the end of the film and I think you'll see why.

The acting is spot on from everybody. I can't think of one performance that stands out for the wrong reasons. Andrew Garfield is excellent in the lead role and Sean Bean is on form.

The exploration of police corruption and the struggle for both revenge and justice resonate well beyond the ending of the film.

The cinematography is excellent and it is disappointing that films of this quality have to be shown on television because they won't find enough of an audience in the majority of British cinemas.

I must have missed something while watching "Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974" because I did not see a spectacular film as some tend to say about it. What I saw was a well made film but nothing so outstanding about a journalist trying to stop a serial killer who murdered little girls back in 1974.

Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield) is a persistent yet very naive journalist trying to solve the case behind the disappearance of some girls from the surroundings. The more he goes with the story he'll find more and more trouble, to the point of having a strange tendency of getting punched by corrupt cops who don't want him near of the people who might know what's the truth behind the deaths. Haven't we seen that before?

The film wasn't strong enough to make me feel deeply interested at certain parts (the course of Eddie's investigations are quite boring, so in order to lift things higher the director gives us lots of sex scenes, a little bit pointless but interesting to see, specially because Garfield is in all of that). It's very well made, well acted specially by Garfield and Sean Bean, who plays a powerful businessman. The historical reconstruction, art direction and costumes (the corny pants Andrew wears are priceless) are really good. But I'm a little saturated of plots like that, very surpriseless and very obvious.

So, I made my point of what works in this piece. If you think you should see it go forward. It's up to you. Totally recommendable for fans of Garfield, Bean, Eddie Marsan, Peter Mullan, David Morrissey and others. 6/10