Like Father Like Son

British TV star Robson Green, little known on these shores, acquits himself handily in filmmaker Nick Laughland's 2004 BBC thriller as Dominic Milne, who becomes engaged to pretty Dee Stanton (Jemma Redgrave) and then runs headlong into a crisis involving his new family-to-be. It turns out that Dee's ex is a serial killer currently serving a life sentence for the murder of four young women, and Dee's troubled 15-year-old son Jamie (Somerset Prew) becomes a source of anxiety for the couple when a girl in his class is found strangled. Has the urge to kill been passed from father to son? This tense, skillfully developed whodunit never overplays its hand, or allows the melodrama to get too thick, and Green's portrayal of an average guy sucked into a nightmarish situation always rings true, while he's ably backed by Redgrave and Prew. A tale of nail-biting suspense in “normal” life settings, this is recommended. (E. Hulse)