A version of this article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 27th February 2016.
The
Night Manager: Sunday, BBC
One
Storyville:
The Black Panthers: Sunday,
BBC Four
Like
a bar of luxury soap sliding inexorably down a bidet bowl, The
Night Manager is a slick and slow affair.
Adapted
and updated from John La Carre's 1993 novel of the same name, it's an
inertly glossy thriller starring Tom Hiddleston as Jonathan Pine, a
former British soldier on a covert mission to destroy billionaire
arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie fulfilling his Bond villain
fantasies).
When
we first met Pine, a charming cove, English “to the core”, he was
working as the night manager at a luxury Cairo hotel while the Arab
Spring raged outside. As dutifully dedicated to the welfare of his
guests as he is to Queen and country, he found himself acting as
gallant protector to the glamorous mistress of the hotel's corrupt
owner.
Presumably
on account of his approachable cheekbones – even allowing for
standard spy thriller intrigue, character motivation is sketchy -
she chose to show him some documents containing conspicuous evidence
of an arms deal involving Roper.
Shortly
after sharing this explosive information with the British embassy, he
found himself in bed with the woman, despite there being no chemistry
between them whatsoever. Lonely nights in Cairo, I suppose. Seeing as
she spoke entirely in flirtatious riddles consumed with fatalistic
portent, it was hardly surprising when she wound up dead.
The
action, and I use that word advisedly, then span forward four years
to find Pine working in a remote Alpine hotel, where his inexplicably
grief-stricken flashbacks were rudely interrupted by the arrival of
Roper.
Laurie
appears to be enjoying himself playing “the worst man in the
world”, but by the time he and his amusingly unpleasant henchman
(Tom Hollander) turned up, it was too late. Even the presence of the
perpetually pregnant Olivia Colman as a cardigan-clad spy with an
indeterminate northern accent can't inject any life into such a
soulless confection.
A
good thriller poses intriguing questions which keep us watching in
the hope of surprising, satisfactory answers. Yet despite the
theoretically high stakes on offer, I see no reason why we should
care about the players, let alone the outcome, of this dreary game of
cat and mouse.
A
gripping and propulsive feature-length documentary, Storyville:
The Black Panthers strove to reclaim the oft-misunderstood story
of the African-American revolutionary party who boldly took on the
establishment in the late '60s and '70s.
Set
against a tense backdrop of police brutality and racism, it traced
the rise and fall of a militant black movement borne of righteous
frustration. Despite their gun-toting image – an edgily symbolic
pose, at least initially - their fundamental goal was the
dismantlement of a system that actively suppressed equal rights in
housing, healthcare and education for, not only African-Americans, but any
victim of poverty.
One of their most successful initiatives was a
free breakfast programme for children. No wonder they were branded as
terrorists by the FBI; for a while at least they were a galvanising
force to be reckoned with.
But
as soon as they became a respectable folk hero force within the black
community, the government made damn sure that their civil liberties
went out the window. Victims of incessant raids, arrests and, in one
horrifying instance, cold-blooded assassination, their radical
socialist manifesto didn't stand a chance in Nixon's America.
When
their steadfast vow to defend themselves by any means necessary was
put to the test, the body count rose, the party started to split, and
the revolution was put on indefinite hold.
Despite
the sizzling funk vibrancy of his stylistic approach, director
Stanley Nelson refrained from romanticising the Panthers
disproportionately. The rock 'n' soul power of their media-savvy
image – dark glasses, berets, afros and leather jackets – remains
ineffably cool, but that's hardly the most important facet of their
legacy.
Nelson
focused instead on insightful contributions from several former
Panthers, who related their story with a fluctuating mix of pride,
humour, anger and sadness. He also gained access to FBI documents
laying bare their insidious campaign to divide and destroy a party
already riven with contradictions.
The
result was a sympathetic yet unsentimental study of a political
awakening destroyed by ideological differences, personal demons and
the insurmountable might of The Man (an enemy embodied by the wizened
toddler scowl of crackpot FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover).
The
film's underlying sense of tragedy and wasted potential was
compounded by an unspoken yet powerfully tacit, sobering truth: the
struggles at its core are still relevant today.
The
radicalism of the Panthers is dead, possibly forever, even though we
live in a world where the odds are more stacked against The People
than ever before. Fight the power, pay the consequences.
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