Sarden Reviews

Slow Horses (2022– )

If you can suspend rational thinking, then yes

[4/10 · 30 December 2023]

You are a skinny 60+ woman who has worked for the MI5 for decades. One day, you find yourself in a busy café, discovering that two athletic men in there are out to get you. Do you 1) Stay in the safety of the public café and contact your friends in the intelligence service? Or 2) Make your way through the kitchen and back door into a deserted and dimly lit alley?

If 2) then Slow Horses is for you. If you can suspend rational thinking and logic - and enjoy a bit of slapstick thrown in for good measure - Slow Horses delivers.

If 1) and you prefer your plots to make sense and take themselves just a little seriously, you will need to look elsewhere.

It's a shame, really. Oldman delivers. The production delivers. The theme song delivers. But the script and directing just doesn't.

The Undeclared War (2022)

Interesting idea ruined by nonsense plot

[3/10 · 17 October 2023]

The subject is intriguing and I greatly appreciated actual Russian being spoken instead of English with Russian accents, B-movie style. But there is just too much nonsense here to accept what's going on.

Two examples:

1) The UK is hit by a massive Russian malware attack affecting half the country, and an intern developer finds an encrypted reference to a time and place in the malware code. The intern goes to the meeting (really?) and is told by the Russian FSB developer that turns up to look closer in the code for something that could start World War III. What does the intern's boss say to all this? That the FSB is probably just trolling, so it's not really worth looking into, but the intern can do it on her own time! Seriously!? This is just madly nonsensical and only there to drive the plot forward with our single heroine in focus.

2) The intern doesn't want to reveal the identity of the FSB agent, because she knows him from college (sure!). But when threatened by her own team that all the identities of the Russian FSB developers behind the attack will be made public, she surrenders and points him out to protect him from his own Russian employers, even though letting his identity be published along with all the other Russian developers is exactly what would have protected him. Because why would the FSB suspect her college friend of anything if the names of all the FSB developers were made public?

If you have a brain, don't watch this. I had to stop halfway through episode 4 because my cognitive capacities couldn't take more abuse.

Spy/Master (2023)

Some suave bleakness is very welcome

[8/10 · 22 July 2023]

Wonderful to watch something European - in spirit and in the setting. It's even better to hear Romanian (and German) spoken and not yet more American English - not that I understand it but it's very refreshing and adds a real cold war touch to the whole thing.

The production quality is high, and you feel transported back to the 70s where everything seems just a little bleak and tasteless in an authentic way.

The plot is relatively simple, and sometimes the details are a tad far-fetched. It has American producers and this shows in places where the suave Europeaness gives way to some more brash action and plot vehicles.

In that sense it probably deserves only a 7, but because of the overall classic and classy feel (and because they speak Romanian) I'll give it an 8.

Interceptor (2022)

No more Netflix

[1/10 · 4 June 2022]

I actually haven't seen this, just the trailer. But it is so mind-numbingly, painfully bad that I can safely give what is clearly another cliché-fest from Netflix the lowest possible score. Have been a Netflix subscriber for years, but no more. The quality is abysmal.

1883 (2021–2022)

It's a soap, and their teeth are too white

[3/10 · 18 February 2022]

Had high expectations for this as I like gritty westerns and this had a rating of no less 9.0.

Disappointed? Very much so. This is essentially a western soap with zero realism, and populated with American actors with bright white veneer on their perfectly straight teeth - both figuratively and literally speaking.

I won't dig into too much detail, but should supply a little. Everything feels stilted and staged. The acting is generally poor, but it's especially the directing that seems to kill this. The actions of the characters often make little sense, and the melodrama is turned way up.

The director makes a feeble attempt at creating grit and drama, trying to tell us all how rough the west is, and that everybody just died, died, died out there. Yet, the feel of the series is more of a Beverly Hills 90210 set in the West. You are "told" that things are tough out here. But as a viewer you don't feel it or experience it in any way. There's zero emotional impact.

The level of realism is well exemplified by a scene when the pioneers have to cross a wide river. No spoilers. First we see a lone rider crossing - the horse down to its neck. Right after a wagon crosses, and it's clear it would have been caught by the river, if that was the depth, but the camera work makes sure we don't see anything that exposes the trickery, and the wagon makes it across, no problem. Despite the river being very wide, two men then proceed to having a casual conversation from either side of it.

The river appears pretty calm, but then we are exposed to dramatic close-ups of people drowning with their arms stretched upwards towards their loved ones.

Add to this that the pioneers are mostly German, but only speak German sometimes. Too much of it would clearly be too much for an American audience, so for slightly longer conversation they will switch to English with bad accents.

It's really very, very bad. And there must either be a whole lot of fake reviews here, or there is little hope for the world. 3 stars for the sometimes pretty scenery, and that's it.

Our Boys (2019)

An outstanding and thrilling insight into the conflict in Israel

[10/10 · 12 February 2022]

I have never given a 10 before, but this is the time for it. 'Our Boys' is at the same time a tense and thrilling crime and justice drama and an insight into recent Israeli history and the sometimes troubled life in this part of the world.

I feared it would be an Israeli-biased series, but it is not at all. Some may say it is not an entirely accurate depiction of what actually took place, but it seems to be a balanced account of events. It certainly doesn't put the orthodox community of Israel in a good light, and I suspect this could be behind some of the poorer reviews here.

The narrative is gripping and the acting outstanding across the board, but especially by the young actor playing 'Avishai'. And as the actual events of 2014 were so dramatic, the very human drama unfolding in front of you is wrapped up in a captivating crime story affecting the whole country of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It will keep you intrigued and thrilled while you learn something new. I wish more people in the West would watch shows like this instead of all the drivel that so much time is wasted on. Well done HBO and the team behind this.

Barbarians (2020–2022)

Kudos for the Latin - not so much for the script

[3/10 · 31 October 2020]

The good:

Getting the idea to make a historical TV-show depicting Roman times from the point of view of an adversary.

The Romans speaking Latin! I cannot begin to describe how liberating and engrossing it is to hear something that at least hints at a possible linguistic reality rather than everybody just speaking English like it was 2020. Bravo for doing this - may it inspire many others.

Decent set and production quality.

The bad:

The rest, I'm afraid. The spoken Latin adds a new level of reality, but everything else takes is away.

'Barbarians' is basically a few historical anecdotes blended with soap.

Unnecessary love story? Yes. A smidgen of soft porn? Yes. Very attractive female protagonist? Yes. Ample use of loud and tacky background music to let you know what mood you should now be in? Yes. Wooden acting? Yes. A stilted and clichéd script making it feel a bit as if a 90s teen flick landed in 9 AD? Yes.

Fake or Fortune (2010– )

Brilliant marriage of art and sleuths

[8/10 · 8 April 2020]

Highbrow insights into art and history blends very well with cheap detective thrills in Fake or Fortune.

You'll learn about the artists themselves, the historical context they found themselves in as well as a bit about chemistry and forensic science - all the while being held in suspense as the investigation unfolds.

It is a brilliant concept that should be replicated with other subject matters: Make enlightenment fun and engaging, and get more enlightened people.

At times the show feels just a little too staged. It's too obvious that researchers went ahead and laid the groundwork, and then our two hosts turned up to act and walk us through the findings and interview whomever were found to be relevant.

I'd give it a full 10 if the show was a little less 'polished' and the hosts were shown to be a bit more involved in the tedious bits. A bit more 'authenticity', in other words.

The Last Kingdom (2015–2022)

Bad blood smeared over faces, history and scripting

[3/10 · 25 November 2018]

The three stars are for production value. The rest is all B-movie terrain with poor acting, caricature scripting and a complete disregard for history.

The Danes invaded and ruled over large parts of Britain over a period of more than 250 years. They were farmers and traders, artisans and craftsmen, and founded numerous towns and cities (e.g. everything in the UK ending in -by and -thorpe today). They were reported by English writers, otherwise much opposed to the invasion, as being excessively clean, bathing once a week and not once a year as was the custom in England at the time.

Yet, in 'The Last Kingdom', Christian Britain is portrayed as being representative of 'civilization', while the Danish Vikings are reduced to drooling, feeble-minded ogres that burn and rape whatever may be at hand, smear blood all over their faces and eat like cavemen.

What could have been a fascinating look at the - also brutal - world more than 1,000 years ago is reduced to satirical caricature, catering in particular to a nationalistically minded UK audience.

This symbolizes the rest of this show. The scripting and acting is on par with the historical accuracy: Shallow characters screaming "attack, attack" just for the hell of it, and, apart from a few decent supporting roles, acting about as realistic as Pinocchio wearing a horned helmet.

BBC, please. Don't take your cues from 1980s Hollywood, You are better than this.

Captain Fantastic (2016)

We do make fun of Christians

[9/10 · 19 October 2016]

A very well acted drama digging in to the hypocrisy, general shortcomings and sometimes outright idiocy of modern Western society in a way that can't help but make you both smile and cry a little.

More than anything this film should make you think about how we are raising our children – the institution of the school and what we feed into our children's minds.

Raised in the woods by their father, Ben Cash, and their currently absent mother, the six children in 'Captain Fantastic' appear to be small geniuses compared to the self-indulgent mush churned out by our institutional schools, Playstations and social media. Are we completely wasting the potential of our children?

Once the geniuses face that real world of institutionalized learning and computer games, however, clashes of cultures are bound to happen. 'Captain Fantastic' is basically an exploration of the self-taught, intellectual Cash family's clash with mainstream culture and, perhaps, of what the two can learn from each other.

The endearing rationalism of the Cash family is laid out as the film moves on, and several memorable quotes should put a smile on the face of any lucid mind, such as:

"We don't make fun of other people ... except Christians", and "Who would you rather have a national holiday for? A non-existent magical elf or a real life humanitarian" (free from the mind) - the humanitarian being Noam Chomsky.

Viggo Mortensen is, as always, exceptional. The acting goes away, and you only see Ben Cash.

At times, the script feels just a little too spelled out and predictable, so I can't give it a full 10. But it's close. One of the best films of 2016 so far.

The Night Manager (2016–2025)

Terrible directing

[2/10 · 21 March 2016]

This otherwise promising spy series is seriously let down by the writing and, especially, the directing. I am a fan of Le Carré and the spy genre in general, but this adaptation lacks all the finesse and class of both the original writing and the many previous stabs at turning it into film or TV.

To be honest, I have only watched episode 1, but that's enough. You know something is seriously wrong after about 5 minutes.

It's the way the camera follows the face of an attractive woman walking by for a little too long.

It's the close-up of two hands meeting - the morning after the owners of those hands made passionate love draped in silk sheets, even if you haven't really got a clue where that passion came from in the first place.

It's the disjointed storytelling, the characters not developing, the clichés piling up and the potential cool of Le Carré evolving into a soap opera almost too embarrassing to watch - destroyed by the amateurish and uninspired directing.

After 50 minutes of watching you are left with an unpleasant uncertainty - not really sure if what you just watched was an attempt at a spy flick or a satirical pastiche.

EDIT

Two days after posting this, my first review ever on IMDb, 2 out of 13 people have found it helpful. I'm curious to know what exactly is unhelpful about it.

It's interesting how all negative reviews of this series have received very low "helpful" ratings, while highly positive reviews — many sounding like press releases from the producers — have received highly favorable approval ratings ...