Thorne: Sleepyhead (2010)

Pretty Good

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I read the book first, which if I hadn't wouldn't have made this too bad of a movie...but since I had read it, the movie was an extreme disappointment! You expect some minor changes in the plot to fit movie time etc, but after the first 1/3 of the movie it wasn't anything like the book at all. It became a whole other story. After that point, neither the interactions between the characters or who the killer was were in the book at all, and key figures in the book, especially who the killer was and how some of the characters died were missing or totally changed...Perhaps the book should be re-released to reflect the movie since the author approved the movie,as totally different to the book he wrote to begin with.

Forgettable performance by the main characters of a London crime unit in the investigation of two serial killer cases; plots, hats off to the writer Mark Billingham, were complex and wonderful but often mangled in a choppy pace with one too many tired social drama or work place politics. Thorne came across as an insensitive self-centered bully in the first case and a sophomoric know-it-all copper in the second. No wonder it got only 1.5% viewer share per Wikipedia:"Running on a Sunday evening in the prime 2100 slot on satellite against strong terrestrial competition from the popular Julian Fellowes' period drama series Downton Abbey, the first episode of four-part drama Single Father starring David Tennant, and a reshowing of the Dan Brown thriller The Da Vinci Code, the show drew 402,000 viewers and 1.5% audience share, according to preliminary BARB figures."

Here we have a three-ring circus PLUS the kitchen sink. This show is so chock-a-block with clichés, red herrings, obvious plot contrivances, and all the current motifs of crime TV that it's hard to imagine what they left out. (We have the renegade cop always in trouble but with infallible instincts, the cold female boss, the seemingly genius serial killer that no one can catch no matter how many clues are strewn about in plain sight, the 'orrible, 'orrible crime, the cop himself and/or loved ones drawn into danger, dubious psychology made up on the fly, etc., ad nauseum.) The show is all so blatantly contrived that it seems to veer into self-parody on numerous occasions, totally undercutting whatever dread or deep engagement we're supposed to be experiencing. Sadly, with so much fine British TV to chose from, never seen on these shores, this is a show that Encore chose to bring over to the US. No thanks.

Now and then during channel surfing late at night there appears something new and unknown that results in making the viewer wish for more. Such is the case for the series THORNE. It is a high tension thriller of a series.'Thorne' is DI Tom Thorne (David Morrissey) who in the Sleepyhead episode enters an investigation into a mysterious serial killer. His first three victims ended up dead. His fourth was not so fortunate. Alison Willetts (Sara Lloyd-Gregory ) is unlucky to be alive. She has survived a stroke, deliberately induced by manipulation of pressure points on the head and neck. She can see, hear and feel, she is aware of everything going on around her, but she is unable to move or communicate. In leaving Alison alive, the police believe the killer's made his first mistake. And it is this kind of complex story-weaving that makes this a very tense and enjoyable series. Written by Dudi Appleton and Jim Keeble and directed with panache by Benjamin Ross, the large cast includes some very fine actors - David Morrissey is at the top of the list - that includes Eddie Marsan, Sandra Oh, Lily Loveless, Neil Kelly among others. We can only hope that this 2010 series has more parts to it and that those episodes will reach our shores and TV screens. Definitely recommended for lovers of high mystery and thrillers. Grady Harp, June 21