The Red Riding Trilogy
Directed by: Julian Jarrold, James Marsh, Anand Tucker
Written by: Tony Grisoni (screenplay), David Peace (novels)
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Sean Bean, Paddy Considine, David Morrissey, Mark Addy, Rebecca Hall, Peter Mullan, Maxine Peake

If you’re in the market for a gripping crime drama, it doesn’t get much better than The Red Riding Trilogy, an epic series of three feature-length made-for-TV movies that aired on Channel 4 in the U.K. back in March of 2009. Although the “made-for-TV” label is typically given a bad rap here in North America, the Brits definitely seem to put a lot more care into their small screen efforts, and the talent on display here is pretty staggering. It also helps that one of the production companies behind it is Revolution Films, the same people who produced almost all of Michael Winterbottom’s films including 24 Hour Party People and The Killer Inside Me. At nearly five hours total running time, The Red Riding Trilogy plays as three solid stand alone thrillers or one epic multi-layered tale that spans almost a decade.

Based on a quartet of novels by David Peace (The Damned United), the trilogy takes a series of killings that occured in Yorkshire, England, from the mid-’70s to the mid-’80s and builds a fictional narrative out of them. Many of the characters crossover and the storylines intersect, but each chapter also remains fairly self-contained. The investigation into these heinous crimes is merely a starting point as we are slowly pulled into the lives of the various people who inhabit the area. Although this may appear on the surface to be just another hack and slash serial killer story, it’s really a grim drama about power, corruption and the failings of the legal system.

The first chapter, In the Year of Our Lord 1974, is perhaps the most intense and action-packed installment of the series. It stars Andrew Garfield (aka the new Spider-Man) as a young reporter chasing down the scoop on several missing girls. At first he simply annoys the police and upsets the families of the girls, but when he enters a relationship with one of the mothers, he finds himself in a heap of trouble. The deeper he gets into the web of lies, the more he realizes that he needs to take matters into his own hands. Directed by Julian Jarrold (Brideshead Revisited), this is probably the most artful of the three films, in the sense that it plays a lot with focus and extreme close-ups, at times taking on a dreamlike quality. That’s not to say it doesn’t have moments of brutality though, in addition to a pretty shocking ending.

Next up, In the Year of Our Lord 1980 introduces us to a new protagonist, Peter Hunter as played by Paddy Considine. This episode is set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper killings, although this is not really the sole focus of the film. Hunter is an outsider sent in to re-evaluate the investigation, and to potentially weed out corruption and/or incompetency — a job that has not made him too popular with the local police force. Hunter is a nice contrast to Garfield’s young and impulsive character in the previous movie, as he is calm, cool and collected, even when people are throwing up roadblocks and hurling insults at him. However, even he eventually gets rattled by the horrible things are are happening in Northern England. Director James Marsh (Man on Wire) shows off his documentary skills with an introductory montage of clips and news footage establishing the Yorkshire Ripper case, but other than that, this film remains the most restrained from a visual standpoint.

In the Year of Our Lord 1983 brings all of the threads together, and re-introduces some of the characters we’ve met previously. Maurice Jobson, one of the police officers who is caught up in the wrongdoings, begins to suffer a guilty conscience and wants to set things right. Together with John Piggott, a public lawyer whose father was also on the force, they start to re-assess the cases of people who were convicted of the killings despite their suspected innocence. In the end, director Anand Tucker (Shopgirl, Leap Year) adds a bit of gloss and stylistic pizazz to the proceedings, which takes away from the realism but dramatically increases the feeling of grandeur in this battle against evil.

The strength of these three films lies in the depth of the characters and their relationships, not so much the plot and unexpected twists. Some may find that things move a bit slow, as there is not a ton of action, and the pursuit of the killer almost feels secondary at times. However, the performances are fantastic across the board, keeping you heavily absorbed in the characters, and although the majority of what we are seeing is fictional, for the most part it all feels believable.

We certainly never see anyone stalking victims, but there are definitely suspenseful scenes, a trail of clues, and a compelling enough mystery to keep you invested. There is also a fair bit of blood and violence, and some disturbing scenes of torture that can be difficult to watch. Make no mistake, this is dark and gritty stuff.

The setting is also very important to this trilogy, particularly Fitzwilliam, a small mining town with grey skies, dilapidated housing and abandoned playgrounds. More than anything, this is a series of stories about a specific time and a place, and the overwhelming corruption is the real villain here as opposed to a single crazed murderer. What really hits home is the feeling that it could happen anywhere, and that a few bad apples can put a stranglehold on an entire community. In some ways, this could be compared to The Wire with respect to the sprawling cast, the geographical ties, and the way that crime spreads to a number of different areas of society.

The storytelling is extremely dense, and it can be a challenge to keep all of the characters straight, particularly when moving from one film to the next. It’s also hard to suss out the timeline, especially in the third film which features flashbacks with many familiar characters despite the fact that it takes place later, chronologically speaking. To top it off, a few of the accents are also a bit tricky for those of us outside the U.K., so you might consider turning on the subtitles or else risk even more confusion.

The Blu-ray release contains all three films on one disc, with a second disc for special features, which seems like a bit of an odd choice. The result is that the video quality and audio quality are decent but not as sharp or clear as one might have hoped. The colours seem a bit washed out, although it’s hard to tell how much of this was intended as the environment are generally shrouded in a consistently gloomy grey. (It’s worth noting that each movie was shot with a different format, from 16mm to 35mm to digital, which also leads to noticeable differences.) Extras include deleted scenes and TV spots for each film, plus an interview with Julian Jarrold and two making of featurettes.

The Red Riding Trilogy may seem like a big commitment of time, but it’s the kind of compelling stuff where time flies once you find yourself hopelessly hooked. Given the opportunity, you just may want to watch all three movies in a single sitting. An American remake is apparently in development with Ridley Scott potentially attached, but it’s hard to imagine this material being captured any better than this. It’s a masterful example of the advantages that long-form storytelling holds over a standard feature film, but on top of that, it’s just a great story, period. — Sean

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Recommended If You Like: Zodiac, The Godfather, L.A. Confidential

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