Combining three vintage British TV programs from the pen of the writer best known for Prime Suspect, this anthology proves to be a mixed bag. The best of the trio is Mind Games, a 2001 feature-length telefilm starring Fiona Shaw as a former nun now working as a police profiler, who takes on the case of a serial killer murdering middle-aged women in their own homes. Although the denouement is almost incredibly complex, Shaw’s committed performance endows the plot with a genuine human dimension. The four-part miniseries Killer Net (1998) is comically dated in its depiction of Internet activity, but the tale of a group of college students—including a young Paul Bettany—who make the mistake of playing a malevolent video game remains creepily effective. The weakest offering is also the longest, Supply and Demand, which began as a 1997 telefilm about British agents foiling a drug-smuggling operation, and was expanded the following year into a six-part miniseries with Miriam Margolyes starring as the head of the undercover team. Divided into three two-episode arcs, the first one, "Raw Recruit," centers on another drug-smuggling ring, but the second, "Golden Goose," focuses on unsavory activities at a notorious London club, and the third, "Blood Ties"—easily the most interesting of the bunch—features Richard Johnson as a British defector who returns from exile in Russia for reasons that the team must unravel. Supply and Demand is essentially a series of procedurals filled with rather dull sequences of suspects’ movements being tracked via surveillance cameras; it’s understandable why, despite Margolyes’s presence, the series was cancelled after a single season. A strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)
Menace and Murder: A Lynda La Plante Collection
RLJ, 5 discs, 720 min., not rated, DVD: $59.99 Volume 33, Issue 5
Menace and Murder: A Lynda La Plante Collection
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
Order From Your Favorite Distributor Today: