Dirk Gently (2010)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

I haven't read the books and I only decided to watch this after having seen the 2016 dirk gently series ( which I loved by the way)Well, this show had definitely some potential since the actors are good and the premise is really interesting.However, I couldn't help but notice the striking similarity that this show had to BBC's Sherlock. Even the music is similar. And by comparing the two shows this one comes off as a silly ripoff of the other. Apart from that the thing that made me angry the most was the questions this Pilot left unanswered1.Why MacDuff sent this email to his girlfriend in the first place? 2.Why did he had to break in her house since they live together? 3.HOW CAN AN IPHONE BATTERY LAST FOR 16YEARS??????THEY DON'T EVEN LAST A DAY 4.How can a old lady kill not one but two people with a pun? I am not an expert but I imagine that killing someone with a pun would require a lot of strength. 5.How the therapist didn't see that the man lying down wasn't the man that jumped off the balcony? They didn't even wear similar clothes. All in all, I wouldn't really recommend this show to anyone. To the person that's reading this review GO WATCH SHERLOCK(2010) OR DIRK GENTLY'S HOLISTIC DETECTIVE AGENCY(2016) INSTEAD.

I really did want to enjoy this but it failed badly for me. I had just read the original Dirk Gently book on which this is based. The plot itself bares not much resemblance to the book but it does just enough to make you remember the original book. Gone are the electronic monk and Professor Chronotis along with the ghost of Gordon Way and the fact that Richard McDuff was employed by Gordon along with Susan being his sister and not his ex-love as she was in this version. In their defence the makers of this television version were always going to struggle to fit the plot of the book into a one hour show.It reminded me of the new BBC version of Sherlock written by Stephen Moffat & Mark Gatiss. Sadly, this version of Dirk Gently can not hold a torch to the fore mentioned programme. In the lead, Stephen Mangan felt like he was over doing the eccentricity of Adams's creation and Darren Boyd as McDuff didn't bring anything to his character.And can you believe that an iPhone would be able to hold its charge for sixteen years? I think not.If the BBC decided to commission this pilot for a series then I hope that they only use the characters and no more Adams's plots or stories as it will only draw comparison to the originals.I, for one, won't bother with the series if by some clerical error it ever sees the light of day.

My personal belief is that a book is a book and a TV production is a TV production - not much point in comparing two widely divergent media. If you already have a strong picture in your mind's eye you will almost inevitably be disappointed by someone else's concept. I must admit Steven Mangan was not the first actor that sprang to mind when I considered who might make a fine Dirk Gently,but he has a hypnotic quality,almost frightening in his intensity.The sublime Darren Boyd plays his reluctant Watson, a master class in non - acting as opposed to Mangan's occasional scenery chewing. The convoluted plot revolves around a time machine and a lost cat with the casual elegance Mr Adams was revered for. Gently is proved right in his theory that everything is interconnected,cons 20 grand off his Watson and disappears to Bermuda. The beautiful Helen Blaxendale shines as Darren Boyd's girlfriend. But for me,the star of "Dirk Gently" was the great Miss Doreen Mantle. Tragically she was killed off at the end so if they do decide to make a series it might take an imagination of Adams - like proportions to bring her back.

Having enjoyed Douglas Adam's Dirk Gently novels many year ago I was interested to see if this television version would be enjoyable too. It soon became apparent that this would only be very loosely based on the books but that didn't stop it being enjoyable. Steven Manghan was good as the somewhat shambolic detective who believes that everything in the universe is connected. We are introduced to him as he is interviewing a client whose cat has gone missing; this might seem somewhat routine but it leads to an old university friend, his girl friend and how they are connected to the missing cat and an equally missing billionaire. Gently's methods are rather eccentric and more than a little dubious… he breaks in to a warehouse at one point and later pays a ten year old computer hacker with two hundred cigarettes! Mangan is ably supported by Darran Boyd who plays his friend McDuff and Helen Bexandale who plays McDuff's girlfriend Susan.While this may be a detective story that is not the programme's main appeal, this is a good thing as the mystery isn't that great… it was funny though; I found myself laughing far more than I expected to. I also liked the fact that Gently wasn't the most moral of people; during the course of the show we see him driving off after hitting somebody with his car, conning his friend into joining the business so he can have a holiday and stealing a psychologist's files. Although this was made as a one off I wouldn't be surprised if a series were to be commissioned although if that were the case I wouldn't expect it to remain on the digital backwater that is BBC4.