Aftermath

This feature-length film is actually a repackaging of the two-part pilot for the British police procedural DCI Banks, which continues to run on ITV and has emigrated to PBS stateside. Based on the titular 2001 novel in a series about Banks by Peter Robinson, Aftermath introduces Stephen Tompkinson as a dogged, tortured Yorkshire detective who has been unsuccessfully working on a case involving five missing girls. The story begins with the discovery of their abductor, who is found with four of the victims' bodies in his basement but winds up in a coma after he kills one of the cops who happens upon the grisly scene and is beaten by the other. Banks struggles to unravel the tangled truth about the killer (who may well have had an accomplice), while also searching for the still missing fifth girl. Meanwhile, Internal Affairs officer Annie Cabbot (Andrea Lowe) butts heads with Banks as she investigates whether the surviving cop used excessive force in subduing the perpetrator. An unlikely romance between Banks and Cabbot feels more obligatory than convincing, but otherwise Aftermath is a solid and gritty police procedural sure to be welcomed by fans of British crime series. Recommended. (F. Swietek)