Julian_D_George Reviews

Call Me Mister (1986)

Pity there was only one season

[7/10 · 3 August 2021]

This is a likeable detective series which, with a few flaws ironed out, could've made it past the one season that was made. The premise of the show is that after the death of his father, Sir Jack Bartholomew (Steve Bisley) returns to his native England after many years living in Australia. Estranged from his family, he is now very different to his brother and sister who continued to run the family pharmaceutical business. Jack had been working as a policeman in Sydney and now sounds so Australian, he'd bleed XXXX beer if he was cut. Because of some legal complications with his father's will and his siblings (more of that in a moment) Jack is left with no choice but to find a job in London. That job turns out to be working as a private detective alongside wheelchair-bound Fred Hurley (David Bamber).

While Fred mostly stays in his office using some wonderfully obsolete 1980s technology to do his work, Jack gets to do the more exciting stuff. He sometimes uses his girlfriend - singer Julie Columbus (Dulice Liecier) as a sidekick. He also has an entertainingly combative relationship with Detective Sergeant McBride (Dermot Crowley) from the local police station. This central quartet work well together and are the best part of the show.

Far less successful are Jack's storylines with his brother and sister. They aren't very happy that their late father changed his will late in the day and that Jack now stands to inherit 20% of the business. His sister Bridget (Haydn Gwynne) shows some human qualities but their brother Philip (Rupert Frazer) is little more than an obnoxious upperclass toff straight from stereotype central. Hell, he even has a floppy fringe to match his plummy accent. All of this sounds like a needless plot device to explain why Jack is still in England and to remind us that he is some sort of posh boy gone rogue.

The show would've managed just fine without this cumbersome back story. It would've made for an interesting premise if they'd just made Steve Bisley's character an Aussie off the bat and observed London through his eyes. They also could've done with less of Jack's girlfriend singing songs on everything from daytime TV chat shows to nightclubs - I know nothing about the actress who played Julie but I'm guessing she was being marketed as a singer at the time.

Call Me Mister is very much of its time but for what it is, it's a well made and acted show. In general, the storylines were engaging and it had really settled down towards the end of its run. I guess that was too late for it though. I also wanted to mention how cool the opening and closing credits are - they look pretty good even in modern times.

Regarding Henry (1991)

Disease of the Week TV movie with an expensive cast

[4/10 · 25 March 2018]

In the 1980s, you were pretty much guaranteed that any film with Harrison Ford's name above the title would be really good. That began to change as the 1990s wore on and in hindsight, this is where the slide began.

In theory this could have been an interesting movie. The redemption of a successful but unpleasant human being and the effect his behaviour had on the people around him. Yet somehow, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, it never becomes anything more than a made for TV disease of the week special. Albeit with an expensive cast. It's a real shame that the one time they paired up Harrison Ford and Annette Bening, it was in this!

The cast themselves are fine and they all do their best with the material that they've been given. But crikey, the script is just so shallow and facile. It wasn't something I paid a lot of attention to when I first watched this as a teenager. But re-watching as an adult it's most unsatisfactory. Even though being married to evil Henry can't have been easy for his wife, the new Henry's a mixed blessing for her .Yes he's a much more pleasant human being than his old self but she's now left with a diminished, childlike husband for the rest of their days. Adjusting to that's not something that'll happen overnight.

The film's also filled with contrived scenes. Henry's Ritz crackers, his miraculous learning how to read and the way he undoes the harm he'd done to the couple at the start of the film. It's all far too neat and tied up in a bundle for my liking. It begs more questions than it answers really.

For what it is, it's well made. Ultimately though, it's the movie equivalent of a cheeseburger. It'll fill you at the time but leave you unsatisfied.