Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009)

A team of investigators attempt to stop a serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper from claiming his next victim, but uncover something far more terrifying.

Director:

James Marsh

Writers:

Tony Grisoni (screenplay), David Peace (novel)

Stars:

Warren Clarke, Paddy Considine, James Fox

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Warren Clarke	...	Bill Molloy
Paddy Considine	...	Peter Hunter
James Fox	...	Philip Evans
David Calder	...	Sir John Marsden
Nicholas Woodeson	...	Michael Warren
Ron Cook	...	Clement Smith
Maxine Peake	...	Helen Marshall
Tony Pitts	...	John Nolan
Jim Carter	...	Harold Angus
David Morrissey	...	Maurice Jobson
Eddie Marsan	...	Jack Whitehead
Sean Harris	...	Bob Craven
Tony Mooney	...	Tommy Douglas
Shaun Dooley	...	Dick Alderman
Kenneth Oxtoby	...	Hotel Receptionist (as Ken Oxtoby)

Storyline

With a serial killer claiming victim 13 and rumors of corruption in their force, the West Yorkshire cops are told to cooperate with a team from outside - Peter Hunter and two hand-picked associates. Hunter gets little help but plunges ahead, discovering that one of the 13 victims may have a different killer. This part of the investigation leads to late-night calls, another murder, and bureaucratic moves to push Hunter aside: he may be getting close, not to the serial killer but to bad apples in the force. Christmas approaches.

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Plot Keywords:

men's room | serial killer | yorkshire | christmas | murder | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Maxine Peake was cast when two previous choices dropped out.

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Goofs

When Hunter goes to visit Laws the door and windows are clearly made of UPVC which was not available in 1980.

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Quotes

Peter Hunter: You don't like the police much, do you?
Martin Laws: No love lost, no.
Peter Hunter: So when someone kicks down your front door, kills the dog and rapes the wife, who you gonna call?
Martin Laws: Well it certainly wouldn't be the West Yorkshire Police - they'd already *be* in there, wouldn't they!

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Connections

Follows Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1983 (2009)

User Reviews

A binge watching of RED RIDING TRILOGY - Part Two 1980

A binge watching of RED RIDING TRILOGY, three TV movies adapted from David Peace's RED RIDING QUARTET, where its second chapter 1977 is skipped. Directed by three different directors in three different formats: 1974 by Julian Jarrold in 16mm film, 1980 by James Marsh in 35mm film and 1983 by Anand Tucked with Red One digital camera, the trilogy forebodingly trawls into the organized crimes and police corruption in West Yorkshire through the prisms of three different protagonists while they are wrestling with a series of murder cases, and overall, it inspires to achieve a vérité similitude of the bleak milieu while sometimes being mired with its own navel- gazing, such as narrative banality (1974), over-calculated formality (1980) and poorly indicated flashback sequences (1983).

The police corruption which disclosed in 1974 turns out to be just a tip of a humongous iceberg, in 1980, after the inaction of the current head Bill Molloy (Clarke), our protagonist is Assistant Chief Constable Peter Hunter (Considine, in an atypical clean-cut appearance), who takes up the gauntlet to investigate the notorious Yorkshire Ripper case (inspired by the real events), which has already claimed a dozen lives, mainly female prostitutes. But soon he will meet more resistance and pressure from within the police department when he is tipped that one of the victims might not be the ripper's work. The tension retains in a high-strung tenor when we see a diligent Peter being taunted by the reprobates on a daily base, in particular from officer Bob Craven (Harris, reprised his role from 1974, and he is so delectably sinister through and through), the lowest scum of the earth. There are some gnawing hitches mined in the narrative, a key confessor is timely dispatched when he refuses to divulge the information on the phone but also has no intention to meet Peter in the hotel where he stays, instead, he asks Peter to come to his home in the witching hour, only to a sorry outcome. Also, it is unwarranted for Peter to appoint Helen Marshall (Peake), his former adulteress, into his team, to further complicate his scrape, plus a superfluous subplot of his broody effort is ironically dismissed by Helen's unsolicited abortion. After finally revealing the bloody picture of that singular murder (not done by the ripper), which connects to the finale of 1974, the story again, sets up a chilling twist to be brutally honest about to which rank extent the forces of law and order has been sullied.

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 November 2009 (France)

Also Known As:

Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980

Filming Locations:

Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, UK

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$14,526, 7 February 2010

Gross USA:

$148,826

Company Credits

Production Co:

Channel Four Film, Lipsync Productions, Revolution Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

93 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1